OVER 
THE  PASS 


FREDERICK   PALMER 


OVER  THE  PASS 


UNIT.  OF  CALIF.  LIBRARY.  LOS  ANGELES 


OVER  THE  PASS 


BY 

FREDERICK  PALMER 

AUTHOR  OF 

THE  VAGABOND, 

DANBURY  ROOD,  ETC 


NEW    YORK 

GROSSET    &    DUNLAP 

PUBLISHERS 


PublUhed  by  Arrangement  with  Charles  Scribner'f  Soni 


COPYRIGHT,  1912,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

Published  April,  1912 


CONTENTS 


I— AN  EASY  TRAVELLER 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    YOUTH  IN  SPURS 3 

II  DINOSAUR  OR  DESPERADO     .        .        .        .12 

III  JACK  RIDES  IN  COMPANY       ....      18 

IV  HE  CARRIES  THE  MAIL 29 

V  A  SMILE  AND  A  SQUARE  CHIN       ...      37 

VI  OBLIVION  Is  NOT  EASY        ....      48 

VII  WHAT  HAPPENED  AT  LANG'S        .        .        .53 

VIII    ACCORDING  TO  CODE 59 

IX    THE  DEVIL  Is  OUT 69 

X    MARY  EXPLAINS 81 

XI  SENOR  DON'T  CARE  RECEIVES        ...      91 

XII  MARY  BRINGS  TRIBUTE          .        .        .        .102 

XIII  A  JOURNEY  ON  CRUTCHES    .       .       .        .110 

XIV  "How  FAST  You  SEW!"       .        .        .        .117 
XV  WHEN  THE  DESERT  BLOOMS        .        .        .131 

XVI    A  CHANGE  OF  MIND 143 

XVII  THE  DOGE  SNAPS  A  RUBBER  BAND      .       .    153 

XVIII  ANOTHER  STRANGER  ARRIVES        .       .       .    161 

XIX  LOOKING  OVER  PRECIPICES                           .    169 


2132215 


vi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XX  A  PUZZLED  AMBASSADOR       ....    183 

XXI  "GOOD-BY,  LITTLE  RIVERS!"         .        .        .     195 

XXII    "LUCK,  JACK,  LUCK!" 200 

II— HE  FINDS  HIMSELF 

XXIII  LABELLED  AND  SHIPPED         .        .        .        .215 

XXIV  IN  THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  MILLIONS  .        .        .    223 
XXV  "Bur  WITH  You,  YES,  SIR!"         .        .        .236 

XXVI  THS  PORTRAIT  OF  A  LADT     ....    241 

XXVII  BY  RIGHT  OF  ANCESTRY       .        .        .        .245 

XXVIII  JACK  GETS  A  RAISE       .     .            ...    255 

XXIX  A  MEETING  ON  THE  AVENUE  TRAIL      .        .    270 

*       XXX    WITH  THE  PHANTOMS 291 

XXXI  PRATHER  WOULD  NOT  WAIT        .        .        .301 

XXXII  A  CRISIS  IN  THE  WlNGFIELD  LlBRART     .           .      310 

XXXIII  PRATHER  SEES  THE  PORTRAIT       .        .        .330 

:    XXXIV  "JOHN  WINGFIELD,  You—"  .        .        .        .343 

III— HE  FINDS  HIS  PLACE  IN  LIFE 

'     XXXV  BACK  TO  LITTLE  RIVERS       .        .        .        .353 

XXXVI  AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE    ....    377 

XXXVII  THE  END  OF  THE  WEAVING   .        .        .        .414 

XXXVIII  THEIR  SIDE  OF  THE  PASS                              .    433 


I 

AN  EASY  TRAVELLER 


YOUTH  IN  SPURS 

Here  time  was  as  nothing;  here  sunset  and  sunrise 
were  as  incidents  of  an  uncalendared,  everlasting  day; 
here  chaotic  grandeur  was  that  of  the  earth's  crust 
when  it  cooled  after  the  last  convulsive  movement  of 
genesis. 

In  all  the  region  about  the  Galeria  Pass  the  silence 
of  the  dry  Arizona  air  seemed  luminous  and  eternal. 
Whoever  climbed  to  the  crotch  of  that  V,  cut  jagged 
against  the  sky  for  distances  yet  unreckoned  by  tourist 
folders,  might  have  the  reward  of  pitching  the  tents 
of  his  imagination  at  the  gateway  of  the  clouds. 

Early  on  a  certain  afternoon  he  would  have  noted 
to  the  eastward  a  speck  far  out  on  a  vast  basin  of 
sand  which  was  enclosed  by  a  rim  of  tumbling  moun- 
tains. Continued  observation  at  long  range  would 
have  shown  the  speck  to  be  moving  almost  impercepti- 
bly, with  what  seemed  the  impertinence  of  infinitesimal 
life  in  that  dead  world;  and,  eventually,  it  would 
have  taken  the  form  of  a  man  astride  a  pony. 

The  man  wras  young,  fantastically  young  if  you  were 
to  judge  by  his  garb,  a  flamboyant  expression  of  the 
romantic  cowboy  style  which  might  have  served  as  a 
sensational  exhibit  in  a  shop-window.  In  place  of 
the  conventional  blue  wool  shirt  was  one  of  dark  blue 
silk.  The  chaparejos,  or  "chaps,"  were  of  the  softest 
3 


4  OVER  THE  PASS 

leather,  with  the  fringe  at  the  seams  generously  long; 
and  the  silver  spurs  at  the  boot-heels  were  chased  in 
antique  pattern  and  ridiculously  large.  Instead  of 
the  conventional  handkerchief  at  the  neck  was  a  dark 
red  string  tie;  while  the  straight-brimmed  cowpuncher 
hat,  out  of  keeping  with  the  general  effect  of  newness 
and  laundered  freshness,  had  that  tint  which  only 
exposure  to  many  dewfalls  and  many  blazing  mid- 
days will  produce  in  light-colored  felt. 

There  was  vagrancy  in  the  smile  of  his  singularly 
sensitive  mouth  and  vagrancy  in  the  relaxed  way  that 
he  rode.  From  the  fondness  with  which  his  gaze 
swept  the  naked  peaks  they  might  have  been  cities 
en  fete  calling  him  to  their  festivities.  If  so,  he  was 
in  no  haste  to  let  realization  overtake  anticipation. 
His  reins  hung  loose.  He  hummed  snatches  of  Spanish, 
French,  and  English  songs.  Their  cosmopolitan  free- 
dom of  variety  was  as  out  of  keeping  with  the  scene  as 
their  lilt,  which  had  the  tripping,  self-carrying  impetus 
of  the  sheer  joy  of  living. 

Lapsing  into  silence,  his  face  went  ruminative  and 
then  sad.  With  a  sudden  indrawing  of  breath  he 
freed  himself  from  his  reverie,  and  bending  over  from 
his  saddle  patted  a  buckskin  neck  in  affectionate  tat- 
too. Tawny  ears  turned  backward  in  appreciative 
fellowship,  but  without  any  break  in  a  plodding  dog- 
trot. Though  the  rider's  aspect  might  say  with  the 
desert  that  time  was  nothing,  the  pony's  expressed  a 
logical  purpose.  Thus  the  speed  of  their  machine-like 
progress  was  entirely  regulated  by  the  prospect  of  a 
measure  of  oats  at  the  journey's  end. 

When  they  came  to  the  foot-hills  and  the  rider  dis- 
mounted and  led  the  way,  with  a  following  muzzle  at 


YOUTH  IN  SPURS  5 

times  poking  the  small  of  his  back,  up  the  tortuous 
path,  rounding  pinnacles  and  skimming  the  edge  of 
abysses,  his  leg  muscles  answered  with  the  readiness 
of  familiarity  with  climbing.  At  the  top  he  saw  why 
the  pass  had  received  its  name  of  Galeria  from  'the 
Spanish.  A  great  isosceles  of  precipitous  walls  formed 
a  long,  natural  gallery,  which  the  heaving  of  the 
earth's  crust  had  rent  and  time  had  eroded.  It  lay 
near  the  present  boundary  line  of  two  civilizations: 
in  the  neutral  zone  of  desert  expanses,  where  the 
Saxon  pioneer,  with  his  lips  closed  on  English  s's,  had 
paused  in  his  progress  southward;  and  the  conquista- 
dore,  with  tongue  caressing  Castilian  vowels,  had  paused 
in  his  progress  northward. 

At  the  other  side  the  traveller  beheld  a  basin  which 
was  a  thousand  feet  higher  than  the  one  behind  him. 
It  approached  the  pass  at  a  gentler  slope.  It  must  be 
cooler  than  the  other,  its  ozone  a  little  rarer.  A  sea 
of  quivering  and  singing  light  in  the  afternoon  glow, 
it  was  lost  in  the  horizon. 

Not  far  from  the  foot-hills  floated  a  patch  of  foliage, 
checkered  by  the  roofs  of  the  houses  of  an  irrigation 
colony,  hanging  kitelike  at  the  end  of  the  silver  thread 
of  a  river  whose  waters  had  set  gardens  abloom  in 
sterile  expanses.  There  seemed  a  refusal  of  intimacy 
with  the  one  visible  symbol  of  its  relations  with  the 
outer  world;  for  the  railroad,  with  its  lines  of  steel 
flashing  across  the  gray  levels,  passed  beyond  the 
outer  edge  of  the  oasis. 

"This  beats  any  valley  I've  seen  yet,"  and  the 
traveller  spoke  with  the  confidence  of  one  who  is  a 
connoisseur  of  Arizona  valleys. 

He  paused  for  some  time  in  hesitancy  to  take  a 


6  OVER  THE  PASS 

farewell  of  the  rapturous  vista.  A  hundred  feet  lower 
and  the  refraction  of  the  light  would  present  it  in 
different  coloring  and  perspective.  With  his  spell  of 
visual  intoxication  ran  the  consciousness  of  being 
utterly  alone.  But  the  egoism  of  his  isolation  in  the 
towering  infinite  did  not  endure;  for  the  sound  of 
voices,  a  man's  and  a  woman's,  broke  on  his  ear. 

The  man's  was  strident,  disagreeable,  persistent. 
Its  timbre  was  such  as  he  had  heard  coming  out  of  the 
doors  of  border  saloons.  The  woman's  was  quiet  and 
resisting,  its  quality  of  youth  peculiarly  emphasized  by 
its  restrained  emotion. 

Now  the  easy  traveller  took  stock  of  his  immediate 
surroundings,  which  had  interested  him  only  as  a 
foothold  and  vantage-point  for  the  panorama  that  he 
had  been  breathing  in.  Here,  of  all  conceivable  places, 
he  was  in  danger  of  becoming  eavesdropper  to  a  con- 
versation which  was  evidently  very  personal.  Round- 
ing the  escarpment  at  his  elbow  he  saw,  on  a  shelf  of 
decaying  granite,  two  waiting  ponies.  One  had  a 
Mexican  saddle  of  the  cowboy  type.  The  other  had 
an  Eastern  side-saddle,  which  struck  him  as  exotic  in 
a  land  where  women  mostly  ride  astride.  And  what 
woman,  whatever  style  of  riding  she  chose,  should  care 
to  come  to  this  pass? 

Judging  by  the  direction  from  which  the  voices 
came,  the  speakers  were  hidden  by  still  another  turn 
in  the  defile.  A  few  more  steps  brought  eye  as  well 
as  ear  back  to  the  living  world  with  the  sight  of  a  girl 
seated  on  a  bowlder.  He  could  see  nothing  of  her  face 
except  the  cheek,  which  was  brown,  and  the  tip  of  a 
chin,  which  he  guessed  was  oval,  and  her  hair,  which 
was  dark  under  her  hatbrim  and  shimmering  with  gold 


YOUTH  IN  SPURS  7 

where  it  was  kissed  by  the  rays  of  the  sun.  An  im- 
pression as  swift  as  a  flash  of  light  could  not  exclude 
inevitable  curiosity  as  to  the  full  face;  a  curiosity 
emphasized  by  the  poised  erectness  of  her  slender 
figure. 

The  man  was  bending  over  her  in  a  familiar  way.  He 
was  thirty,  perhaps,  in  the  prime  of  physical  vigor, 
square-jawed,  cocksure,  a  six-shooter  slung  at  his  hip. 
Though  she  was  not  giving  way  before  him,  her  atti- 
tude, in  its  steadiness,  reflected  distress  in  a  bowstrung 
tremulousness.  Suddenly,  at  something  he  said  which 
the  easy  traveller  could  not  quite  understand,  she  sprang 
up  aflame,  her  hand  flying  back  against  the  rock  wall 
behind  her  for  support.  Then  the  man  spoke  so  loud 
that  he  was  distinctly  audible. 

"When  you  get  mad  like  that  you're  prettier'n 
ever,"  he  said. 

It  was  a  peculiar  situation.  It  seemed  incredible, 
melodramatic,  unreal,  in  sight  of  the  crawling  freight 
train  far  out  on  the  levels. 

"Aren't  you  overplaying  your  part,  sir?"  the  easy 
traveller  asked. 

The  man's  hand  flew  to  his  six-shooter,  while  the 
girl  looked  around  in  swift  and  eager  impulse  to  the 
interrupting  voice.  Its  owner,  the  color  scheme  of 
his  attire  emphasized  by  the  glare  of  the  low  sun, 
expressed  in  his  pose  and  the  inquiring  flicker  of  a 
smile  purely  the  element  of  the  casual.  Far  from 
making  any  movement  toward  his  own  six-shooter, 
he  seemed  oblivious  of  any  such  necessity.  With  the 
first  glimpse  of  her  face,  when  he  saw  the  violet  flame 
of  her  anger  go  ruddy  with  surprise  and  relief,  then 
fluid  and  sparkling  as  a  culminating  change  of  emo- 


S  OVER  THE  PASS 

tion,  he  felt  cheap  for  having  asked  himself  the  ques- 
tion— which  now  seemed  so  superficial — whether  she 
were  good-looking  or  not.  She  was,  undoubtedly,  yes, 
undoubtedly  good-looking  in  a  way  of  her  own. 

"What  business  is  it  of  yours?"  demanded  the  man, 
evidently  under  the  impression  that  he  was  due  to 
say  something,  while  his  fingers  still  rested  on  his 
holster. 

"None  at  all,  unless  she  says  so,"  the  deliverer 
answered.  "Is  it?"  he  asked  her. 

After  her  first  glance  at  him  she  had  lowered  her 
lashes.  Now  she  raised  them,  sending  a  direct  message 
beside  which  her  first  glance  had  been  dumb  indifference. 
He  was  seeing  into  the  depths  of  her  eyes  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  a  privilege  rarely  bestowed.  They  gave 
wing  to  a  thousand  inquiries.  He  had  the  thrill  of  an 
explorer  who  is  about  to  enter  on  a  voyage  of  discov- 
ery. Then  the  veil  was  drawn  before  his  ship  had 
even  put  out  from  port.  It  was  a  veil  woven  with 
fine  threads  of  appreciative  and  conventional  gratitude. 

"It  is!"  she  said  decisively. 

"I'll  be  going,"  said  the  persecutor,  with  a  grimace 
that  seemed  mixed  partly  of  inherent  bravado  and 
partly  of  shame,  as  his  pulse  slowed  down  to  normal. 

"As  you  please,"  answered  that  easy  traveller.  "I 
had  no  mind  to  exert  any  positive  directions  over 
your  movements." 

His  politeness,  his  disinterestedness,  and  his  evident 
disinclination  to  any  kind  of  vehemence  carried  an 
implication  more  exasperating  than  an  open  challenge. 
They  changed  melodrama  into  comedy.  They  made 
his  protagonist  appear  a  negligible  quantity. 

"There's  some  things  I  don't  do  when  women  are 


YOUTH  IN  SPURS  9 

around,"  the  persecutor  returned,  grudgingly,  and 
went  for  his  horse;  while  oppressive  silence  prevailed. 
The  easy  traveller  was  not  looking  at  the  girl  or  she 
at  him.  He  was  regarding  the  other  man  idly,  curi- 
ously, though  not  contemptuously  as  he  mounted  and 
started  down  the  trail  toward  the  valley,  only  to  draw 
rein  as  he  looked  back  over  his  shoulder  with  a  glare 
which  took  the  easy  traveller  in  from  head  to  foot. 

"Huh!  You  near-silk  dude!"  he  said  chokingly,  in 
his  rancor  which  had  grown  with  the  few  minutes  he 
had  had  for  self-communion. 

"If  you  mean  my  shirt,  it  was  sold  to  me  for  pure 
silk,"  the  easy  traveller  returned,  in  half-diffident  cor- 
rection of  the  statement. 

"We'll  meet  again!"  came  the  more  definite  and 
articulate  defiance. 

"Perhaps.  Who  can  tell?  Arizona,  though  a  large 
place,  has  so  few  people  that  it  is  humanly  very  small." 

Now  the  other  man  rose  in  his  stirrups,  resting  the 
weight  of  his  body  on  the  palm  of  the  hand  which  was 
on  the  back  of  his  saddle.  He  was  rigid,  his  voice  was 
shaking  with  very  genuine  though  dramatic  rage  drawn 
to  a  fine  point  of  determination. 

"When  we  do  meet,  you  better  draw!  I  give  you 
warning!"  he  called. 

There  was  no  sign  that  this  threat  had  made  the  easy 
traveller  tighten  a  single  muscle.  But  a  trace  of  scep- 
ticism had  crept  into  his  smile. 

"Whew!"  He  drew  the  exclamation  out  into  a 
whistle. 

"Whistle? — whistle  while  you  can!  You  won't  have 
many  more  chances!  Draw,  you  tenderfoot!  But  it 
won't  do  any  good — I'll  get  you!" 


10  OVER  THE  PASS 

With  this  challenge  the  other  settled  back  into  the 
saddle  and  proceeded  on  his  way. 

"Whew!"  The  second  whistle  was  anything  but 
truculent  and  anything  but  apologetic.  It  had  the 
unconscious  and  spontaneous  quality  of  the  delight  of 
the  collector  who  finds  a  new  specimen  in  wild  places. 

From  under  her  lashes  the  girl  had  been  watching 
the  easy  traveller  rather  than  her  persecutor;  first, 
studiously;  then,  in  the  confusion  of  embarrassment 
that  left  her  speechless. 

&*•  "Well,  well,"  he  concluded,  "you  must  take  not 
only  your  zoology,  but  your  anthropology  as  you  find 
it!" 

|i  His  drollness,  his  dry  contemplation  of  the  specimen, 
and  his  absurdly  gay  and  unpractical  attire,  formed  a 
combination  of  elements  suddenly  grouped  into  an 
effect  that  touched  her  reflex  nerves  after  the  strain 
with  the  magic  of  humor.  She  could  not  help  herself: 
she  burst  out  laughing.  At  this,  he  looked  away  from 
the  specimen;  looked  around  puzzled,  quizzically,  and, 
in  sympathetic  impulse,  began  laughing  himself.  Thus 
a  wholly  unmodern  incident  took  a  whimsical  turn  out 
of  a  horror  which,  if  farcical  in  the  abstract,  was  no 
less  potent  in  the  concrete. 

"Quite  like  the  Middle  Ages,  isn't  it?"  he  said. 

"But  Walter  Scott  ceased  writing  in  the  thirties!" 
she  returned,  quick  to  fall  in  with  his  cue. 

"The  swooning  age  outlasted  him — lasted,  indeed, 
into  the  era  of  hoop-skirts;  but  that,  too,  is  gone." 

"They  do  give  medals,"  she  added. 

"For  rescuing  the  drowning  only;  and  they  are  a 
great  nuisance  to  carry  around  in  one's  baggage. 
Please  don't  recommend  me!" 


YOUTH  IN  SPURS  11 

Both  laughed  again  softly,  looking  fairly  at  each 
other  in  understanding,  twentieth-century  fashion. 
She  was  not  to  play  the  classic  damsel  or  he  the  classic 
rescuer.  Yet  the  fact  of  a  young  man  finding  a  young 
woman  brutally  annoyed  on  the  roof  of  the  world, 
five  or  six  miles  from  a  settlement — well,  it  was  a  fact. 
Over  the  bump  of  their  self-introduction,  free  of  the 
serious  impression  of  her  experience,  she  could  think  for 
him  as  well  as  for  herself.  This  struck  her  with  sud- 
den alarm. 

"I  fear  I  have  made  you  a  dangerous  enemy,"  she 
said.  "  Pete  Leddy  is  the  prize  ruffian  of  our  commu- 
nity of  Little  Rivers." 

"I  thought  that  this  would  be  an  interesting  valley," 
he  returned,  in  bland  appreciation  of  her  contribution 
of  information  about  the  habits  of  the  specimen. 


n 

DINOSAUR  OR  DESPERADO 

She  faced  a  situation  irritating  and  vitalizing,  and 
inevitably,  under  its  growing  perplexity,  her  observa- 
tion of  his  appearance  and  characteristics  had  been 
acute  with  feminine  intuition,  which  is  so  frequently 
right,  that  we  forget  that  it  may  not  always  be.  She 
imagined  him  with  a  certain  amiable  aimlessness  turn- 
ing his  pony  to  one  side  so  as  not  to  knock  down  a 
danger  sign,  while  he  rode  straight  over  a  precipice. 

What  would  have  happened  if  Leddy  had  really 
drawn?  she  asked  herself.  Probably  her  deliverer 
would  have  regarded  the  muzzle  of  Leddy's  gun  in 
studious  vacancy  before  a  bullet  sent  him  to  kingdom 
come.  All  speculation  aside,  her  problem  was  how  to 
rescue  her  rescuer.  She  felt  almost  motherly  on  his 
account,  he  was  so  blissfully  oblivious  to  realities. 
And  she  felt,  too,  that  under  the  circumstances,  she 
ought  to  be  formal. 

"Now,  Mister — "  she  began;  and  the  Mister 
sounded  odd  and  stilted  in  her  ears  in  relation  to  him. 

"Jack  is  my  name,"  he  said  simply. 

"Mine  is  Mary,"  she  volunteered,  giving  him  as 
much  as  he  had  given  and  no  more.  "Now,  sir,"  she 
went  on,  in  peremptory  earnestness,  "this  is  serious." 

"It  was"  he  answered.     "At  least,  unpleasant." 

"It  is,  now.    Pete  Leddy  meant  what  he  said  when 
he  said  that  he  would  draw." 
12 


DINOSAUR  OR  DESPERADO  13 

"He  ought  to,  from  his  repeated  emphasis,"  answered 
Jack,  in  agreeable  affirmation. 

"He  has  six  notches  on  his  gun-handle — six  men 
that  he  has  killed ! "  Mary  went  on. 

"Whew!"  said  Jack.  "And  he  isn't  more  than 
thirty!  He  seems  a  hard  worker  who  keeps  right  on 
1  the  job." 

She  pressed  her  lips  together  to  control  her  amuse- 
ment, before  she  asked  categorically,  with  the  pre- 
cision of  a  school-mistress: 

"Do  you  know  how  to  shoot?" 

He  was  surprised.  He  seemed  to  be  wondering  if 
she  were  not  making  sport  of  him. 

"Why  should  I  carry  a  six-shooter  if  I  did  not?"  he 
asked. 

This  convinced  her  that  his  revolver  was  a  part  of 
his  play  cowboy  costume.  He  had  come  out  of  the 
East  thinking  that  desperado  etiquette  of  the  Bad 
Lands  was  opera  bou/e. 

"  Leddy  is  a  dead  shot.  He  will  give  you  no  chance ! " 
she  insisted. 

"I  should  think  not,"  Jack  mused.  "No,  naturally 
not;  otherwise  there  might  have  been  no  sixth  notch. 
The  third  or  the  fourth,  even  the  second  object  of  his 
favor  might  have  blasted  his  fair  young  career  as  a 
wood-carver.  Has  he  set  any  limit  to  his  ambition  ?  Is 
he  going  to  make  it  an  even  hundred  and  then  retire  ?" 

"I  don't  know!"  she  gasped. 

"I  must  ask,"  he  added,  thoughtfully. 

Was  he  out  of  his  head?  Certainly  his  eye  was  not 
insane.  Its  bluish-gray  was  twinkling  enjoyably  into 
hers. 

"You  exasperated  him  with  that  whistle.     It  was  a 


14  OVER  THE  PASS 

deadly  insult  to  his  desperado  pride.  You  are  marked 
— don't  you  see,  marked?"  she  persisted.  "And  I 
brought  it  on !  I  am  responsible ! " 

He  shook  his  head  in  a  denial  so  unmoved  by  her 
appeal  that  she  was  sure  he  would  send  Job  into  an 
apoplectic  frenzy. 

"Pardon  me,  but  you're  contradicting  your  own 
statement.  You  just  said  it  was  the  whistle,"  he  cor- 
rected her.  "It's  the  whistle  that  gives  me  Check 
Number  Seven.  You  haven't  the  least  bit  of  respon- 
sibility. The  whistle  gets  it  all,  just  as  you  said." 

This  was  too  much.  Confuting  her  with  her  own 
words!  Quibbling  with  his  own  danger  in  order  to 
make  her  an  accomplice  of  murder!  She  lost  her 
cemper  completely.  That  fact  alone  could  account  for 
the  audacity  of  her  next  remark. 

"  I  wonder  if  you  really  know  enough  to  come  in  out 
of  the  rain!"  she  stormed. 

"That's  the  blessing  of  living  in  Arizona,"  he  re- 
turned. "  It  is  such  a  dry  climate." 

She  caught  herself  laughing;  and  this  only  made  her 
the  more  intense  a  second  later,  on  a  different  tack. 
Now  she  would  plead. 

"Please — please  promise  me  that  you  will  not  go  to 
Little  Rivers  to-night.  Promise  that  you  will  turn 
back  over  the  pass ! " 

"You  put  me  between  the  devil  and  the  dragon. 
What  you  ask  is  impossible.  I'll  tell  you  why,"  he 
went  on,  confidentially.  "You  know  this  is  the  land 
of  fossil  dinosaurs." 

"I  had  a  brute  on  my  hands,"  she  thought;  "now 
I  have  the  Mad  Hatter  and  the  March  Hare  in 
collaboration!" 


DINOSAUR  OR  DESPERADO  15 

"There  is  a  big  dinosaur  come  to  life  on  the  other 
side,"  he  proceeded.  "I  just  got  through  the  pass  in 
time.  I  could  feel  his  breath  on  my  back — a  hot,  gun- 
powdery  breath!  It  was  awful,  simply  awful  and  hor- 
rible, too.  And  just  as  I  had  resigned  myself  to  be 
his  entree,  by  great  luck  his  big  middle  got  wedged  in 
the  bottom  of  the  V,  and  his  scales  scraped  like  the 
plates  of  a  ship  against  a  stone  pier!" 

To  her  disgust  she  was  laughing  again. 

"If  I  went  back  now  out  of  fear  of  Pete  Leddy,"  he 
continued,  "that  dinosaur  would  know  that  I  was  such 
insignificant  prey  he  would  not  even  take  the  trouble 
to  knock  me  down  with  a  forepaw.  He  would  swallow 
me  alive  and  running!  Think  of  that  slimy  slide 
down  the  red  upholstery  of  his  gullet,  not  to  mention 
the  misery  of  a  total  loss  of  my  dignity  and  self-respect ! " 

He  had  spoken  it  all  as  if  he  believed  it  true.  He 
made  it  seem  almost  true. 

"I  like  nonsense  as  much  as  anybody,"  she  began, 
"and  I  do  not  forget  that  you  did  me  a  great  kindness." 

"Which  any  stranger,  any  third  person  coming  at 
the  right  moment  might  have  done,"  he  interrupted. 
"Sir  Walter's  age  has  passed." 

"Yes,  but  Pete  Leddy  belongs  still  farther  back. 
We  may  laugh  at  his  ruffianly  bravado,  but  no  one 
may  laugh  at  a  forty-four  calibre  bullet!  Think  what 
you  are  going  to  make  me  pay  for  your  kindness!  I 
must  pay  with  memory  of  the  sound  of  a  shot  and  the 
fall  of  a  body  there  in  the  streets  of  Little  Rivers — a 
nightmare  for  life !  Oh,  I  beg  of  you,  though  it  is  fun 
for  you  to  be  killed,  consider  me !  Don't  go  down  into 
that  valley!  I  beg  of  you,  go  back  over  the  pass!" 

There  was  no  acting,  no  suspicion  of  a  gesture. 


16  OVER  THE  PASS 

She  stood  quite  still,  while  all  the  power  of  her  eyes 
reflected  the  misery  which  she  pictured  for  herself. 
The  low  pitch  of  her  voice  sounded  its  depths  with 
that  restraint  which  makes  for  the  most  poignant  in- 
tensity. As  she  reached  her  climax  he  had  come  out 
of  his  languid  pose.  He  was  erect  and  rigid.  She 
saw  him  as  some  person  other  than  the  one  to  whom 
she  had  begun  her  appeal.  He  was  still  smiling,  but 
his  smile  was  of  a  different  sort.  Instead  of  being  the 
significant  thing  about  him  in  expression  of  his  casual- 
ness,  it  seemed  the  softening  compensation  for  his 
stubbornness. 

"I'd  like  to,  but  it  is  hardly  in  human  nature  for 
me  to  do  that.  I  can't!"  And  he  asked  if  he  might 
bring  up  her  pony. 

"Yes,"  she  consented. 

She  thought  that  the  faint  bow  of  courtesy  with 
which  he  had  accompanied  the  announcement  of  his 
decision  he  would  have  given,  in  common  politeness, 
to  anyone  who  pointed  at  the  danger  sign  before  he 
rode  over  the  precipice. 

"May  I  ride  down  with  you,  or  shall  I  go  ahead?" 
he  inquired,  after  he  had  assisted  her  to  mount. 

"With  me!"  she  answered,  quickly.  "You  are  safe 
while  you  are  with  me." 

The  decisive  turn  to  her  mobile  lips  and  the  faint 
wrinkles  of  a  frown,  coming  and  going  in  various  her- 
aldry, formed  a  vividly  sentient  and  versatile  expres- 
sion of  emotions  while  she  watched  his  silhouette 
against  the  sky  as  he  turned  to  get  his  own  pony. 

"Come,  P.  D. — come  along!"  he  called. 

In  answer  to  his  voice  an  equine  face,  peculiarly  re- 
flective of  trail  wisdom,  bony  and  large,  particularly 


DINOSAUR  OR  DESPERADO  17 

over  the  eyes,  slowly  turned  toward  its  master.  P.  D. 
was  considering. 

"Come  along!  The  trail,  P.  D.!"  And  P.  D.  came, 
but  with  democratic  independence,  taking  his  time  to 
get  into  motion.  "He  is  never  fast,"  Jack  explained, 
"but  once  he  has  the  motor  going,  he  keeps  at  it  all 
day.  So  I  call  him  P.  D.  without  the  Q.,  as  he  is 
never  quick." 

"Pretty  Damn,  you  mean!"  she  exclaimed,  with  a 
certain  spontaneous  pride  of  understanding.  Then  she 
flushed  in  confusion. 

"Oh,  thank  you!  It  was  so  human  of  you  to  trans- 
late it  out  loud!  It  isn't  profane.  Look  at  him  now. 
Don't  you  think  it  is  a  good  name  for  him?"  Jack 
asked,  seriously. 

"I  do!" 

She  was  laughing  again,  oblivious  of  the  impending 
tragedy. 


in 

JACK  RIDES  IN  COMPANY 

Let  not  the  Grundy  woman  raise  an  eyebrow  of 
deprecation  at  the  informal  introduction  of  Jack  and 
Mary,  or  we  shall  refute  her  with  her  own  precepts, 
which  make  the  steps  to  a  throne  the  steps  of  the 
social  pyramid.  If  she  wishes  a  sponsor,  we  name  an 
impeccable  majesty  of  the  very  oldest  dynasty  of  all, 
which  is  entirely  without  scandal.  We  remind  her 
of  the  ancient  rule  that  people  who  meet  at  court, 
vouched  for  by  royal  favor,  need  no  introduction. 

These  two  had  met  under  the  roof  of  the  Eternal 
Painter.  His  palette  is  somewhere  in  the  upper  ether 
and  his  head  in  the  interplanetary  spaces.  His  heavy 
eyebrows  twinkle  with  star-dust.  Dodging  occasional 
flying  meteors,  which  harass  him  as  flies  harass  a  land- 
scapist  out  of  doors  on  a  hot  day,  he  is  ever  active, 
this  mighty  artist  of  the  changing  desert  sky.  So 
fickle  his  moods,  so  versatile  his  genius,  so  quick  to 
creation  his  fancy,  that  he  never  knows  what  his  next 
composition  will  be  till  the  second  that  it  is  begun. 

No  earthly  rival  need  be  jealous  of  him.  He  will 
never  clog  the  galleries.  He  always  paints  on  the  same 
canvas,  scraping  off  one  picture  to  make  room  for 
another.  And  you  do  not  mind  the  loss  of  the  old. 
You  live  for  the  new. 

His  Majesty  has  no  artistic  memory.  He  is  as  young 
18 


JACK  RIDES  IN  COMPANY  19 

as  he  was  the  day  that  he  flung  out  his  first  tentative 
lunette  after  chaos.  He  is  the  patron  saint  of  all  pil- 
grims from  the  city's  struggle,  where  they  found  no 
oases  of  rest.  He  melts  "pasts"  and  family  skeletons 
and  hidden  stories  of  any  kind  whatsoever  into  the 
blue  as  a  background  with  the  abandoned  preoccupa- 
tion of  his  own  brushwork.  His  lieges,  who  seek  obliv- 
ion in  the  desert,  need  not  worry  about  the  water  that 
will  never  run  over  the  millwheel  again,  or  dwell  in 
prophecy  on  floods  to  come.  The  omnipotence  of  the 
moment  transports  and  soothes  them. 

"Time  is  nothing!"  says  the  Eternal  Painter.  "If 
you  feel  important,  remember  that  man's  hectic  bus- 
tling makes  but  worm-work  on  the  planet.  Live  and 
breathe  joyfully  and  magnificently!  Do  not  strain 
your  eyes  over  embroidery!  Come  to  my  open  gal- 
lery! And  how  do  you  like  the  way  I  set  those  silver 
clouds  a-tumbling?  Do  you  know  anything  better 
under  the  dome  of  any  church  or  capitol?  Shall  I 
bank  them?  Line  them  with  purple?  It  is  done! 
But  no!  Let  us  wipe  it  all  out,  change  the  tint  of  our 
background,  and  start  afresh!" 

With  his  eleven  hundred  million  billionth  sunset,  or 
thereabouts,  His  Majesty  held  a  man  and  a  woman  who 
had  met  on  the  roof  of  the  world  in  thrall.  He  was 
lurid  at  the  outset,  dipping  his  camel's  hair  in  at  the 
round  furnace  door  sinking  toward  the  hills,  whose  red 
vortex  shot  tongues  of  flame  into  canyons  and  crevasses 
and  drove  out  their  lurking  shadows  with  the  fire  of 
its  inquisition.  The  foliage  of  Little  Rivers  became  a 
grove  of  quivering  leaves  of  gold,  set  on  a  vast  beaten 
platter  of  gold.  And  the  man  and  the  woman,  like 
all  things  else  in  the  landscape,  were  suffused  in  this 


20  OVER  THE  PASS 

still,  Parnassian,  penetrating  brilliancy,  which  ought 
to  make  even  a  miser  feel  that  his  hoarded  eagles  and 
sovereigns  are  ephemeral  dross. 

"I  love  it  all— all  the  desert!"  said  Mary  Ewold. 

"And  I,  too!" 

"  I  have  for  six  years." 

"I  for  five." 

The  sentences  had  struck  clearly  as  answering  chimes, 
impersonally,  in  their  preoccupied  gazing. 

"It  gave  me  life!"  he  added. 

"And  it  gave  me  life!" 

Then  they  looked  at  each  other  in  mutual  surprise 
and  understanding;  each  in  wonder  that  the  other  had 
ever  been  anything  but  radiant  of  out-of-doors  health. 
That  fleck  on  the  lungs  which  brought  a  doctor's  orders 
had  long  ago  been  healed  by  the  physician  of  the  ozone 
they  were  breathing. 

"And  you  remained,"  he  said. 

"And  you,  also,"  she  answered. 

Their  own  silence  seemed  to  become  a  thing  apart 
from  the  silence  of  the  infinite.  It  was  as  if  both  recog- 
nized a  common  thought  that  even  the  Eternal  Painter 
could  not  compel  oblivion  of  the  past  to  which  they 
did  not  return;  of  the  faith  of  cities  to  which  they  had 
been  bred.  But  it  is  one  of  the  Eternal  Painter's  rules 
that  no  one  of  his  subjects  should  ask  another  of  his 
subjects  why  he  stays  on  the  desert.  Jack  was  the 
first  to  speak,  and  his  voice  returned  to  the  casual  key. 

"Usually  I  watch  the  sunset  while  we  make  camp," 
he  said.  "I  am  very  late  to-night — late  beyond  all 
habit;  and  sunset  and  sunrise  do  make  one  a  creature 
of  habit  out  here.  Firio  and  my  little  train  will  grow 
impatient  waiting  for  me." 


JACK  RIDES  IN  COMPANY  21 

"You  mean  the  Indian  and  the  burro  with  the  silver 
bells  that  came  over  the  pass  some  time  before  you?" 

Of  course  they  belonged  to  him,  she  was  thinking, 
even  as  she  made  the  inquiry.  This  play  cowboy,  with 
his  absurdly  enormous  silver  spurs,  would  naturally 
put  bells  on  his  burro. 

"Yes,  I  sent  Firio  with  Wrath  of  God  and  Jag  Ear 
on  ahead  and  told  him  to  wait  at  the  foot  of  the  descent. 
Wrath  of  God  will  worry — he  is  of  a  worrying  nature. 
I  must  be  going." 

In  view  of  the  dinosaur  nonsense  she  was  already  pre- 
pared for  a  variety  of  inventional  talk  from  him.  As 
they  started  down  from  the  pass  in  single  file,  she 
leading,  the  sun  sank  behind  the  hills,  leaving  the 
Eternal  Painter,  unhindered  by  a  furnace  glare  in  the 
centre  of  the  canvas,  to  paint  with  a  thousand  brushes 
in  the  radiant  tints  of  the  afterglow. 

"You  don't  like  that  one,  O  art  critics!"  we  hear 
him  saying.  "Well,  here  is  another  before  you  have 
adjusted  your  pince-nez,  and  I  will  brush  it  away  before 
you  have  emitted  your  first  Ah!  I  do  not  criticise. 
I  paint — I  paint  for  the  love  of  it.  I  paint  with  the 
pigments  of  the  firmament  and  the  imagination  of  the 
universe." 

The  two  did  not  talk  of  that  sky  which  held  their 
averted  glances,  while  knowing  hoofs  that  bore  their 
weight  kept  the  path.  For  how  can  you  talk  of  the 
desert  sky  except  in  the  banality  of  exclamations?  It 
is  Use  majeste  to  the  Eternal  Painter  to  attempt 
description. 

At  times  she  looked  back  and  their  eyes  met  in 
understanding,  as  true  subjects  of  His  Majesty,  and 
then  they  looked  skyward  to  see  what  changes  the 


22  OVER  THE  PASS 

Master's  witchery  had  wrought.  In  supreme  intoxi- 
cation of  the  senses,  breathing  that  dry  air  which  was 
like  cool  wine  coming  in  long  sips  to  the  palate,  they 
rode  down  the  winding  trail,  till,  after  a  surpassing 
outburst,  the  Eternal  Painter  dropped  his  brush  for 
the  night. 

It  was  dusk.  Shadows  returned  to  the  crevasses. 
Free  of  the  magic  of  the  sky,  with  the  curtains  of  night 
drawing  in,  the  mighty  savagery  of  the  bare  moun- 
tains in  their  disdain  of  man  and  imagination  re- 
asserted itself.  It  dropped  Mary  Ewold  from  the 
azure  to  the  reality  of  Pete  Leddy.  She  was  seeing 
the  smoking  end  of  a  revolver  and  a  body  lying  in  a 
pool  of  blood;  and  there,  behind  her,  rode  this  smiling 
stranger,  proceeding  so  genially  and  carelessly  to  the 
fate  which  she  had  provided  for  him. 

With  the  last  turn,  which  brought  them  level  with 
the  plain,  they  came  upon  an  Indian,  a  baggage  burro, 
and  a  riding-pony.  The  Indian  sprang  up,  grinning 
his  welcome  and  doffing  a  Mexican  steeple-hat. 

"I  must  introduce  you  all  around,"  Jack  told  Mary. 

She  observed  in  his  manner  something  new! — a  posi- 
tive enthusiasm  for  his  three  retainers,  which  included 
a  certain  well-relished  vanity  in  their  loyalty  and 
character. 

"Firio  has  Sancho  Panza  beaten  to  a  frazzle,"  Jack 
said.  "  Sancho  was  fat  and  unresourcef ul ;  even  stupid. 
Fancy  him  broiling  a  quail  on  a  spit!  Fancy  what  a 
lot  of  trouble  Firio  could  have  saved  Don  Quixote  de 
la  Mancha!  Why,  confound  it,  he  would  have  spoiled 
the  story!" 

Firio  was  a  solid  grain,  to  take  Jack's  view,  win- 
nowed out  of  bushels  of  aboriginal  chaff;  an  Indian,  all 


JACK  RIDES  IN  COMPANY  23 

Indian,  without  any  strain  of  Spanish  blood  in  the 
primitive  southern  strain. 

"And  Firio  rides  Wrath  of  God,"  Jack  continued, 
nodding  to  a  pony  with  a  low-hung  head  and  pendant 
lip,  whose  lugubrious  expression  was  exaggerated  by  a 
scar.  "He  looks  it,  don't  you  think? — always  miser- 
able, whether  his  nose  is  in  the  oats  or  we  run  out  of 
water.  He  is  our  sad  philosopher,  who  has  just  as  de- 
pendable a  gait  as  P.  D.  I  have  many  theories  about 
the  psychology  of  his  ego.  Sometimes  I  explain  it  by 
a  desire  both  to  escape  and  to  pursue  unhappiness, 
which  amounts  to  a  solemn  kind  of  perpetual  motion. 
But  he  has  a  positively  sweet  nature.  There  is  no  more 
malice  in  his  professional  mournfulness  than  in  the 
cheerful  humor  of  Jag  Ear." 

"It  is  plain  to  see  which  is  Jag  Ear,"  she  observed, 
"and  how  he  earned  his  name." 

Every  time  a  burro  gets  into  the  corn,  an  Indian 
master  cuts  off  a  bit  of  long,  furry  ear  as  a  lesson. 
Before  Jag  Ear  passed  into  kindlier  hands  he  had  been 
clipped  closer  than  a  Boston  terrier.  Only  a  single  up- 
standing fragment  remained  in  token  of  a  graded  edu- 
cation which  had  availed  him  nothing. 

"There's  no  curtailing  Jag  Ear's  curiosity,"  said 
Jack.  "  To  him,  everything  is  worth  trying.  That  is 
why  he  is  a  born  traveller.  He  has  been  with  me  from 
Colorado  to  Chihuahua,  on  all  my  wanderings  back 
and  forth." 

While  he  spoke,  Firio  mounted  Wrath  of  God  and, 
with  Jag  Ear's  bells  jingling,  the  supply  division  set 
out  on  the  road.  Jack  and  Mary  followed,  this  time 
riding  side  by  side,  pony  nose  to  pony  nose,  in  an  in- 
timacy of  association  impossible  in  the  narrow  moun- 


24  OVER  THE  PASS 

tain  trail.  It  was  an  intimacy  signalized  by  silence. 
There  was  an  end  to  the  mighty  transports  of  the 
heights;  the  wells  of  whimsicality  had  dried  up.  The 
weight  of  the  silence  seemed  balancing  on  a  brittle 
thread.  All  the  afternoon's  events  aligned  themselves 
in  a  colossal  satire.  In  the  half  light  Jack  became  a, 
gaunt  and  lonely  figure  that  ought  to  be  confined  in 
some  Utopian  kindergarten. 

Mary  could  feel  her  temples  beating  with  the  fear 
of  what  was  waiting  for  him  in  Little  Rivers,  now  a 
dark  mass  on  the  levels,  just  dark,  without  color  or 
any  attraction  except  the  mystery  that  goes  with  the 
shroud  of  night.  She  knew  how  he  would  laugh  at 
her  fears;  for  she  guessed  that  he  was  unafraid  of  any- 
thing in  the  world  which,  however,  was  no  protection 
from  Pete  Leddy's  six-shooter. 

"I — I  have  a  right  to  know — won't  you  tell  me  how 
you  are  going  to  defend  yourself  against  Pete  Leddy?  " 
she  demanded,  in  a  sudden  outburst. 

"I  hadn't  thought  of  that.  Certainly,  I  shall  leave 
it  to  Pete  himself  to  open  hostilities.  I  hadn't  thought 
of  it  because  I  have  been  too  busy  thinking  out  how  I 
was  going  to  break  a  piece  of  news  to  Firio.  I  have  been 
an  awful  coward  about  it,  putting  it  off  and  putting  it 
off.  I  had  planned  to  do  it  on  my  birthday  two  weeks 
ago,  and  then  he  gave  me  these  big  silver  spurs— spent 
a  whole  month's  wages  on  them,  think  of  that!  I 
bought  this  cowboy  regalia  to  go  with  them.  You 
can't  imagine  how  that  pleased  him.  It  certainly  was 
great  fun." 

Mary  could  only  shake  her  head  hopelessly. 

"Firio  and  Jag  Ear  and  Wrath  of  God  and  old  P.  D. 
here — we've  sort  of  grown  used  to  one  another's  fool- 


JACK  RIDES  IN  COMPANY  25 

ishness.  Now  I  can't  put  it  off  any  longer,  antf  I'd 
about  as  soon  be  murdered  as  tell  him  that  I  am  going 
East  in  the  morning." 

"You  mean  you  are  going  to  leave  here  for  good?" 
She  mistrusted  her  own  hearing.  She  was  dazzled  by 
this  sudden  burst  of  light  through  the  clouds. 

"Yes,  by  the  first  train.  This  is  my  last  desert 
ride." 

Why  had  he  not  said  so  at  first?  It  would  not  only 
have  saved  her  from  worry,  but  from  the  humiliation  of 
pleading  with  a  stranger.  Doubtless  he  had  enjoyed 
teasing  her.  But  no  matter.  The  affair  need  not 
last  much  longer,  now.  She  told  herself  that,  if  nec- 
essary, she  would  mount  guard  over  him  for  the  re- 
maining twelve  hours  of  his  stay.  Once  he  was  aboard 
the  Pullman  he  would  be  out  of  danger;  her  responsi- 
bility would  be  over  and  the  whole  affair  would  become 
a  bizarre  memory;  an  incident  closed. 

"Back  to  New  York,"  he  said,  as  one  who  enters 
a  fog  without  a  compass.  "Back  to  fight  pleosaurs, 
dinosaurs,  and  all  kinds  of  monsters,"  he  added,  with 
a  cheeriness  which  rang  with  the  first  false  note  she  had 
heard  from  him.  "I  don't  care,"  he  concluded,  and 
broke  into  a  Spanish  air,  whose  beat  ran  with  the 
trickling  hoof-beats  of  the  ponies  in  the  sand. 

"That  is  it!"  she  thought.  "That  explains.  He 
just  does  not  care  about  anything." 

Ahead,  the  lamps  were  beginning  to  twinkle  in  the 
little  settlement  which  had  sent  such  a  contrast  in 
citizenship  as  Mary  Ewold  and  Pete  Leddy  out  to 
the  pass.  They  were  approaching  a  single,  isolated 
building,  from  the  door  of  which  came  a  spray  of  light 
and  the  sound  of  men's  voices. 


26  OVER  THE  PASS 

"That  is  Bill  Lang's  place,"  Mary  explained.  "He 
keeps  a  store,  with  a  bar  in  the  rear.  He  also  has  the 
post-office,  thanks  to  his  political  influence,  and  this 
is  where  I  have  to  stop  for  the  mail  when  I  return  from 
the  pass." 

She  had  not  spoken  with  any  sense  of  a  hint  which 
it  was  inevitable  he  should  accept. 

"Let  me  get  it  for  you;"  and  before  she  had  time 
to  protest,  he  had  dismounted,  drawing  rein  at  the 
edge  of  the  wooden  steps. 

She  rode  past  where  his  pony  was  standing.  When 
he  entered  the  door,  his  tallness  and  lean  ease  of  pos- 
ture silhouetted  in  the  light,  she  could  look  in  on  the 
group  of  idling  male  gossips. 

"Don't!" 

It  was  a  half  cry  from  her,  hardly  audible  in  an  in- 
tensity which  she  knew  was  futile  in  the  surge  of  her 
torturing  self-incrimination.  Why  had  she  not  thought 
that  it  would  be  here  that  Pete  Leddy  was  bound  to 
wait  for  anyone  coming  in  by  the  trail  from  Galeria? 
The  loungers  suddenly  dropped  to  the  cover  of  boxes 
and  barrels,  as  a  flicker  of  steel  shot  upward,  and  be- 
hind the  gleaming  rim  of  a  revolver  muzzle  held  rigid 
was  a  brown  hand  and  Leddy's  hard,  unyielding  face. 

What  matter  if  the  easy  traveller  could  shoot?  He 
was  caught  like  a  man  coming  out  of  an  alley.  He 
had  no  chance  to  draw  in  turn.  In  the  click  of  a 
second-hand  the  thing  would  be  over.  Mary's  eyes  in- 
voluntarily closed,  to  avoid  seeing  the  flash  from  the 
revolver.  She  listened  for  the  report;  for  the  fall  of 
a  body  which  should  express  the  horror  she  had  vis- 
ualized for  the  hundredth  time.  A  century  seemed  to 
pass  and  there  was  no  sound  except  the  beat  of  her 


JACK  RIDES  IN  COMPANY  27 

heart,  which  ran  in  a  cataract  throb  to  her  temples; 
no  sound  except  that  and  what  seemed  to  be  soft,  regu- 
lar steps  on  the  bare  floor  of  the  store. 

"Coward!"  she  told  herself,  with  the  agony  of  her 
suspense  breaking.  "He  saved  you  from  inexpressi- 
ble humiliation  and  you  are  afraid  even  to  look!" 

She  opened  her  eyes,  prepared  for  the  worst.  Had 
she  gone  out  of  her  head?  Could  she  no  longer  trust 
her  own  eyesight?  What  she  saw  was  inconceivable. 
The  startled  faces  of  the  loungers  were  rising  from 
behind  the  boxes  and  barrels.  Pete  Leddy's  gun  had 
dropped  to  his  side  and  his  would-be  victim  had  a  hand 
on  Pete's  shoulder.  Jack  was  talking  apparently  in  a 
kindly  and  reasoning  tone,  but  she  could  not  make  out 
his  words. 

One  man  alone  evidently  had  not  taken  cover.  It 
was  Jim  Galway,  a  rancher,  who  had  been  standing 
at  the  mail  counter.  To  judge  by  his  expression,  what 
Jack  was  saying  had  his  approval. 

With  a  nod  to  Leddy  and  then  a  nod  to  the  others, 
as  if  in  amicable  conclusion  of  the  affair,  Jack  wheeled 
around  to  the  counter,  disclosing  Leddy's  face  wry  with 
insupportable  chagrin.  His  revolver  was  still  in  his 
hand.  In  the  swift  impulse  of  one  at  bay  who  finds 
himself  released,  he  brought  it  up.  There  was  murder, 
murder  from  behind,  in  the  catlike  quickness  of  his 
movement;  but  Jim  Galway  was  equally  quick.  He 
threw  his  whole  weight  toward  Leddy  in  a  catapult 
leap,  as  he  grasped  Leddy's  wrist  and  bore  it  down. 
Jack  faced  about  in  alert  readiness.  Seeing  that  Gal- 
way had  the  situation  pat,  he  put  up  his  hand  in  a 
kind  of  questioning,  puzzled  remonstrance;  but  Mary 
noticed  that  he  was  very  erect.  He  spoke  and  Gal- 


28  OVER  THE  PASS 

way  spoke  in  answer.  Evidently  he  was  asking  that 
Leddy  be  released.  To  this  Galway  consented  at 
length,  but  without  drawing  back  until  he  had  seen 
Leddy's  gun  safe  in  the  holster. 

Then  Leddy  raised  himself  challengingly  on  tiptoes 
to  Jack,  who  turned  to  Galway  in  the  manner  of  one 
extending  an  invitation.  On  his  part,  Leddy  turned 
to  Ropey  Smith,  another  of  Little  Rivers'  ruffians. 
After  this,  Leddy  went  through  the  door  at  the  rear; 
the  loungers  resumed  their  seats  on  the  cracker  barrels 
and  gazed  at  one  another  with  dropped  jaws,  while 
Bill  Lang  proceeded  with  his  business  as  postmaster. 


IV 

HE  CARRIES  THE  MAIL 

When  the  suspense  was  over  for  Mary,  the  glare  of 
the  store  lamp  went  dancing  in  grotesque  waves,  and 
abruptly,  uncannily,  fell  away  into  the  distant,  swim- 
ming glow  of  a  lantern  suffused  with  fog.  She  swayed. 
Only  the  leg-rest  kept  her  from  slipping  off  the  pony. 
Her  first  returning  sense  of  her  surroundings  came  with 
the  sound  of  a  voice,  the  same  careless,  pleasant  voice 
which  she  had  heard  at  Galeria  asking  Pete  Leddy  if 
he  were  not  overplaying  his  part. 

"You  were  right,"  said  the  voice.  "It  was  the 
whistle  that  made  him  so  angry/* 

Indistinctly  she  associated  a  slowly-shaping  figure 
with  the  voice  and  realized  that  she  had  been  away  in 
the  unknown  for  a  second.  Yes,  it  was  all  very  well 
to  talk  about  Sir  Walter  being  out  of  fashion,  but  she 
had  been  near  to  fainting,  and  in  none  of  the  affecta- 
tion of  the  hoop-skirt  age,  either.  Had  she  done  any 
foolish  thing  in  expression  of  a  weakness  that  she  had 
never  known  before?  Had  she  extended  her  hand  for 
support?  Had  he  caught  her  as  she  wobbled  in  the 
saddle?  No.  She  was  relieved  to  see  that  he  was 
not  near  enough  for  that. 

"By  no  stretch  of  ethics  can  you  charge  yourself 
with  further  responsibility  or  fears,"  he  continued. 
"  Pete  and  I  understand  each  other  perfectly,  now." 
29 


30  OVER  THE  PASS 

But  in  his  jocularity  ran  something  which  was  plain, 
if  unspoken.  It  was  that  he  would  put  an  end  to  a 
disagreeable  subject.  His  first  words  to  her  had  pro- 
vided a  bridge — and  burned  it — from  the  bank  of  the 
disagreeable  to  the  bank  of  agreeable.  Her  own  de- 
sire, with  full  mastery  of  her  faculties  coming  swiftly, 
fell  in  with  his.  She  wanted  to  blot  out  that  horror 
and  scotch  a  sudden  uprising  of  curiosity  as  to  the  exact 
nature  of  the  gamble  in  death  through  which  he  had 
passed.  It  was  enough  that  he  was  alive. 

The  blurry  figure  became  distinct,  smiling  with  in- 
quiry in  a  glance  from  her  to  the  stack  of  papers,  mag- 
azines, and  pamphlets  which  crowded  his  circling  arms. 
He  seemed  to  have  emptied  the  post-office.  There  had 
not  been  any  Pete  Leddy;  there  had  been  no  display 
of  six-shooters.  He  had  gone  in  after  the  mail.  Here 
he  was  ready  to  deliver  it  by  the  bushel,  while  he 
waited  for  orders.  She  had  to  laugh  at  his  predicament 
as  he  lowered  his  chin  to  steady  a  book  on  the  top  of 
the  pile. 

"Oh,  I  meant  to  tell  you  that  you  were  not  to  bring 
the  second-class  matter!"  she  told  him.  "We  always 
send  a  servant  with  a  basket  for  that.  You  see  what 
comes  of  having  a  father  who  is  not  only  omnivorous, 
but  has  a  herbivorous  capacity." 

He  saw  that  the  book  had  a  row  of  Italian  stamps 
across  the  wrapper.  Unless  that  popular  magazine 
stopped  slipping,  both  the  book  and  a  heavy  German 
pamphlet  would  go.  He  took  two  hasty  steps  toward 
her,  in  mock  distress  of  appeal. 

"I'll  allow  salvage  if  you  act  promptly!"   he  said. 

She  lifted  the  tottering  apex  just  in  time  to  prevent 
its  fall. 


HE  CARRIES  THE  MAIL  31 

"I'll  take  the  book,"  she  said.  "Father  has  been 
waiting  months  for  it.  We  can  separate  the  letters 
and  leave  the  rest  in  the  store  to  be  sent  for." 

"The  railroad  station  is  on  the  other  side  of  the 
town,  isn't  it?  "  he  asked. 

"Yes." 

"I  shall  camp  nearby,  so  it  will  be  no  trouble  to 
leave  my  burden  at  your  door  as  I  pass." 

"He  does  have  the  gift  of  oiling  the  wheels  in  either 
big  or  little  moments,"  she  thought,  as  she  realized 
how  simple  and  considerate  had  been  his  course  from 
the  first.  He  was  a  stranger  going  on  his  way,  stop- 
ping, however,  to  do  her  or  any  other  traveller  a  favor 
en  route. 

"Firio,  we're  ready  to  hear  Jag  Ear's  bells!"  he 
called. 

"Si!"  answered  Firio. 

All  the  while  the  Indian  had  kept  in  the  shadow, 
away  from  the  spray  of  light  from  the  store  lamp,  un- 
aware of  the  rapid  drama  that  had  passed  among  the 
boxes  and  barrels.  He  had  observed  nothing  unusual 
in  the  young  lady,  whose  outward  manifestation  of 
what  she  had  witnessed  was  the  closing  of  her  eyes. 

It  was  out  of  the  question  that  Jack  should  mount 
a  horse  when  both  arms  were  crowded  with  their  bur- 
den. He  walked  beside  Mary's  stirrup  leather  in  the 
attitude  of  that  attendant  on  royalty  who  bears  a  crown 
on  a  cushion. 

"Little  Rivers  is  a  new  town,  isn't  it?"  he  asked. 

"Yes,  the  Town  Wonderful,"  she  answered.  "Fa- 
ther founded  it." 

She  spoke  with  an  affection  which  ran  as  deep  into 
the  soil  as  young  roots  after  water.  If  on  the  pass  she 


32  OVER  THE  PASS 

had  seemed  a  part  of  the  desert,  of  great,  lonely  dis- 
tances and  a  far-flung  carpet  of  dreams,  here  she  seemed 
to  belong  to  books  and  gardens. 

"I  wish  I  had  time  to  look  over  the  Town  Wonder- 
ful in  the  morning,  but  my  train  goes  very  early,  I 
believe." 

After  his  years  of  aimless  travelling,  to  which  he  had 
so  readily  confessed,  he  had  tied  himself  to  a  definite 
hour  on  a  railroad  schedule  as  something  commanding 
and  inviolable.  Such  inconsistency  did  not  surprise 
her.  Had  she  not  already  learned  to  expect  incon- 
sistencies from  him? 

"Oh,  it  is  all  simple  and  primitive,  but  it  means  a 
lot  to  us,"  she  said. 

"  What  one's  home  and  people  mean  to  him  is  pretty 
well  all  of  one's  own  human  drama,"  he  returned, 
seriously. 

The  peace  of  evening  was  in  the  air  and  the  lights 
along  the  single  street  were  a  gentle  and  persistent  pro- 
test of  human  life  against  the  mighty  stretch  of  the 
enveloping  mantle  of  night.  From  the  cottages  of  the 
ranchers  came  the  sound  of  voices.  The  twang  of  a 
guitar  quivering  starward  made  medley  with  Jag  Ear's 
bells. 

Here,  for  a  little  distance,  the  trail,  in  its  long  reach 
on  the  desert,  had  taken  on  the  dignity  of  the  urban 
name  of  street.  On  either  side,  fronting  the  cottages, 
ran  the  slow  waters  of  two  irrigation  ditches,  gleaming 
where  lamp-rays  penetrated  the  darkness.  The  date 
of  each  rancher's  settlement  was  fairly  indicated  by  the 
size  of  the  quick-growing  umbrella  and  pepper-trees 
which  had  been  planted  for  shade.  Thus  all  the  mass 
of  foliage  rose  like  a  mound  of  gentle  slope  toward  the 


HE  CARRIES  THE  MAIL  33 

centre  of  the  town,  where  Jack  saw  vaguely  the  out- 
lines of  a  rambling  bungalow,  more  spacious  if  no  more 
pretentious  than  its  neighbors  in  its  architecture.  At 
a  cement  bridge  over  the  ditch,  leading  to  a  broad  ve- 
randa under  the  soft  illumination  of  a  big,  wrought- 
iron  lantern,  Mary  drew  rein. 

"This  is  home,"  she  said;  "and — and  thank  you!" 

He  could  not  see  her  face,  which  was  in  the  shadow 
turned  toward  him,  as  he  looked  into  the  light  of  the 
lantern  from  the  other  side  of  her  pony. 

"  And — thank  y ou ! " 

It  was  as  if  she  had  been  on  the  point  of  saying  some- 
thing else  and  could  not  get  the  form  of  any  sentence 
except  these  two  words.  Was  there  anything  further 
to  say  except  "Thank  you'"?  Anything  but  to  repeat 
"Thank  you"? 

There  he  stood,  this  stranger  so  correctly  introduced 
by  the  Eternal  Painter,  with  his  burden,  waiting  in- 
structions in  this  moment  of  awkward  diffidence.  He 
looked  at  her  and  at  the  porch  and  at  his  bundle  of 
mail  in  a  quizzical  appeal.  Then  she  realized  that,  in 
a  peculiar  lapse  of  abstraction,  she  had  forgotten  about 
his  encumberment. 

Before  she  could  speak  there  was  a  sonorous  hail 
from  the  house;  a  hail  in  keeping  with  the  generous 
bulk  of  its  owner,  who  had  come  through  the  door. 
He  was  well  past  middle-age,  with  a  thatch  of  gray  hair 
half  covering  his  high  forehead.  In  one  hand  he  held 
the  book  that  he  had  been  reading,  and  in  the  other  a 
pair  of  big  tortoise-shell  glasses. 

"Mary,  you  are  late — and  what  have  we  here?" 

He  was  beaming  at  Jack  as  he  came  across  the 
bridge  and  he  broke  into  hearty  laughter  as  he 


34  OVER  THE  PASS 

viewed  Jack's  preoccupation  with  the  second-class 
matter. 

"At  last!  At  last  we  have  rural  free  delivery  in 
Little  Rivers!  We  are  the  coming  town!  And  your 
uniform,  sir" — Jasper  Ewold  took  in  the  cowboy 
outfit  with  a  sweeping  glance  which  warmed  with  the 
picturesque  effect — "it's  a  great  improvement  on  the 
regulation;  fit  for  free  delivery  in  Little  Rivers,  where 
nobody  studies  to  be  unconventional  in  any  vanity  of 
mistaking  that  for  originality,  but  nobody  need  be 
conventional." 

He  took  some  of  the  cargo  in  his  own  hands.  With 
the  hearty  breeze  of  his  personality  he  fairly  blew  Jack 
onto  the  porch,  where  magazines  and  pamphlets  were 
dropped  indiscriminately  in  a  pile  on  a  rattan  settee. 

"You  certainly  have  enough  reading  matter,"  said 
Jack.  "And  I  must  be  getting  on  to  camp." 

For  he  had  no  invitation  to  stay  from  Mary  and  the 
conventional  fact  that  he  had  to  recognize  is  that  a 
postman's  call  is  not  a  social  call.  As  he  turned  to 
go  he  faced  her  coming  across  the  bridge.  An  Indian 
servant,  who  seemed  to  have  materialized  out  of  the 
night,  had  taken  charge  of  her  pony. 

"To  camp!  Never!"  said  Jasper  Ewold.  "Sir 
Knight,  slip  your  lance  in  the  ring  of  the  castle  walls — • 
but  having  no  lance  and  this  being  no  castle,  well,  Sir 
Knight  in  cliaparejos — that  is  to  say,  Sir  Chaps — let 
me  inform  you" — here  Jasper  Ewold  threw  back  his 
shoulders  and  tossed  his  mane  of  hair,  his  voice  sinking 
to  a  serious  basso  prof  undo — "yes,  inform  you,  sir, 
that  there  is  one  convention,  a  local  rule,  that  no 
stranger  crosses  this  threshold  at  dinner-time  with- 
out staying  to  dinner."  There  was  a  resonance  in 


HE  CARRIES  THE  MAIL  35 

his  tone,  a  liveliness  to  his  expression,  that  was  in- 
fectious. 

"But  Firio  and  Jag  Ear  and  Wrath  of  God  wait  for 
me,"  Jack  said,  entering  with  real  enjoyment  into  the 
grandiose  style. 

"High  sounding  company,  sir!  Let  me  see  them!" 
demanded  Jasper  Ewold. 

Jack  pointed  to  his  cavalcade  waiting  in  the  half 
shadows,  where  the  lamp-rays  grew  thin.  Wrath  of 
God's  bony  face  was  pointed  lugubriously  toward  the 
door;  Jag  Ear  was  wiggling  his  fragment  of  ear. 

"And  Moses  on  the  mountain-top  says  that  you 
stay!"  declared  Jasper  Ewold. 

Jack  looked  at  Mary.  She  had  not  spoken  yet  and 
he  waited  on  her  word. 

"Please  do!"  she  said.  "Father  wants  someone  to 
talk  to." 

"Yes,  Sir  Chaps,  I  shall  talk;  otherwise,  why  was 
man  given  a  tongue  in  his  head  and  ideas?" 

Refusal  was  out  of  the  question.  Accordingly,  Firio 
wae  sent  on  to  make  camp  alone. 

"Now,  Sir  Chaps,  now,  Mr. — "  began  Jasper  Ewold, 
pausing  blankly.  "Why,  Mary,  you  have  not  given 
me  his  city  directory  name! " 

"Mr. — "  and  Mary  blushed.  She  could  only  pass 
the  blame  back  to  the  Eternal  Painter's  oversight  in 
their  introduction. 

"Jack  Wingfield!"  said  Jack,  on  his  own  account. 

"Jack  Wingfield!"  repeated  Jasper  Ewold,  tasting 
the  name. 

A  flicker  of  surprise  followed  by  a  flicker  of  drawn 
intensity  ran  over  his  features,  and  he  studied  Jack  in 
a  long  glance,  which  he  masked  just  in  time  to  save  it 


36  OVER  THE  PASS 

from  being  a  stare.  Jack  was  conscious  of  the  scrutiny. 
He  flushed  slightly  and  waited  for  some  word  to  explain 
it;  but  none  came.  Jasper  E wold's  Olympian  geni- 
ality returned  in  a  spontaneous  flood. 

"Come  inside,  Jack  Wingfield,"  he  said.  "Come 
inside,  Sir  Chaps — for  that  is  how  I  shall  call  you." 

The  very  drum-beat  of  hospitality  was  in  his  voice. 
It  was  a  wonderful  voice,  deep  and  warm  and  musical; 
not  to  be  forgotten. 


A  SMILE  AND  A  SQUARE  CHIN 

When  a  man  comes  to  the  door  book  in  hand  and 
you  have  the  testimony  of  the  versatility  and  breadth 
of  his  reading  in  half  a  bushel  of  mail  for  him,  you 
expect  to  find  his  surroundings  in  keeping.  But  in 
Jasper  Ewold's  living-room  Jack  found  nothing  of  the 
kind. 

Heavy,  natural  beams  supported  the  ceiling.  On  the 
gray  cement  walls  were  four  German  photographs  of 
famous  marbles.  The  Venus  de  Milo  looked  across  to 
the  David  of  Michael  Angelo;  the  Flying  Victory  across 
to  Rodin's  Thinker.  In  the  centre  was  a  massive 
Florentine  table,  its  broad  top  bare  except  for  a  big 
ivory  tusk  paper-knife  free  from  any  mounting  of 
silver.  On  the  shelf  underneath  were  portfolios  of  the 
reproductions  of  paintings. 

An  effect  which  at  first  was  one  of  quiet  spaciousness 
became  impressive  and  compelling.  Its  simplicity  was 
without  any  of  the  artificiality  that  sometimes  accom- 
panies an  effort  to  escape  over-ornamentation.  No 
one  could  be  in  the  room  without  thinking  through  his 
eyes  and  with  his  imagination.  Wherever  he  sat  he 
would  look  up  to  a  masterpiece  as  the  sole  object  of 
contemplation. 

"This  is  my  room.  Here,  Mary  lets  me  have  my 
way,"  said  Jasper  Ewold.  "And  it  is  not  expensive." 
37 


38  OVER  THE  PASS 

"The  Japanese  idea  of  concentration,"  said  Jack. 

Jasper  Ewold,  who  had  been  watching  the  effect  of 
the  room  on  Jack,  as  he  watched  it  on  every  new-comer, 
showed  his  surprise  and  pleasure  that  this  young  man 
in  cowboy  regalia  understood  some  things  besides 
camps  and  trails;  and  this  very  fact  made  him  answer 
in  the  vigorous  and  enjoyed  combatancy  of  the  born 
controversialist. 

"Japanese?  No!"  he  declared.  "The  little  men 
with  their  storks  and  vases  have  merely  discovered  to 
us  in  decoration  a  principle  which  was  Greek  in  a  more 
majestic  world  than  theirs.  It  was  the  true  instinct 
of  the  classic  motherhood  of  our  art  before  collectors 
mistook  their  residences  for  warehouses." 

"And  the  books?"  Jack  asked,  boyishly.  "Where 
are  they?  Yes,  what  do  you  do  with  all  the  second- 
class  matter?  " 

The  question  was  bait  to  Jasper  Ewold.  It  gave  him 
an  opportunity  for  discourse. 

"When  I  read  I  want  nothing  but  a  paper-cutter 
close  at  hand — a  good,  big  paper-cutter,  whose  own 
weight  carries  it  through  the  leaves.  And  I  want  to 
be  alone  with  that  book.  If  I  am  too  lazy  to  go  to  the 
library  for  another,  then  it  is  not  worth  reading. 
When  I  get  head-achy  with  print  and  look  up,  I  don't 
want  to  stare  at  the  backs  of  more  books.  I  want 
something  to  rest  and  fill  the  eye.  I " 

"Father,"  Mary  admonished  him,  "I  fear  this  is 
going  to  be  long.  Why  not  continue  after  Mr.  Wing- 
field  has  washed  off  the  dust  of  travel  and  we  are  at 
table?" 

"Mary  is  merely  jealous.  She  wants  to  hurry  you 
to  the  dining-room,  which  was  designed  to  her  taste," 


A  SMILE  AND  A  SQUARE  CHIN        39 

answered  her  father,  with  an  affectation  of  grand  in- 
dignation. "The  dust  of  travel  here  is  clean  desert 
dust — but  I  admit  that  it  is  gritty.  Come  with  me, 
Sir  Chaps!" 

He  bade  Jack  precede  him  through  a  door  diagonally 
opposite  the  one  by  which  he  had  entered  from  the 
veranda.  On  the  other  side  Jack  found  himself  sur- 
rounded by  walls  of  books,  which  formed  a  parallel- 
ogram around  a  great  deal  table  littered  with  magazines 
and  papers.  Here,  indeed,  the  printed  word  might 
riot  as  it  pleased  in  the  joyous  variety  and  chaos  of 
that  truly  omnivorous  reader  of  herbivorous  capacity. 
Out  of  the  library  Jack  passed  into  Jasper  Ewold's  bed- 
room. It  was  small,  with  a  soldier's  cot  of  exaggerated 
size  that  must  have  been  built  for  his  amplitude  of  per- 
son, and  it  was  bare  of  ornament  except  for  an  old 
ivory  crucifix. 

"There's  a  pitcher  and  basin,  if  you  incline  to  a 
limited  operation  for  outward  convention,"  said  Jasper 
Ewold;  "  and  through  that  door  you  will  find  a  shower, 
if  you  are  for  frank,  unlimited  submersion  of  the 
altogether." 

"Have  I  time  for  the  altogether?"  Jack  asked. 

"When  youth  has  not  in  this  house,  it  marks  a  retro- 
cession toward  barbarism  for  Little  Rivers  which  I 
refuse  to  contemplate.  Take  your  shower,  Sir  Chaps, 
and" — a  smile  went  weaving  over  the  hills  and  valleys 
of  Jasper  Ewold's  face — "and,  mind,  you  take  off  those 
grand  boots  or  they  will  get  full  of  water!  You  will 
find  me  in  the  library  when  you  are  through;"  and, 
shaking  with  subterranean  enjoyment  of  his  own  joke, 
he  closed  the  door. 

Cool  water  from  the  bowels  of  the  mountains  fell  on 
a  figure  as  slender  as  that  of  the  great  Michael's  David 


40  OVER  THE  PASS 

pictured  in  the  living-room;  a  figure  whose  muscles 
ran  rippling  with  leanness  and  suppleness,  without  the 
bunching  over-development  of  the  athlete.  He  bub- 
bled in  shivery  delight  with  the  first  frigid  sting  of  the 
downpour;  he  laughed  in  ecstasy  as  he  pulled  the 
valve  wide  open,  inviting  a  Niagara. 

While  he  was  still  glowing  with  the  rough  intimacy  of 
the  towel,  he  viewed  the  trappings  thrown  over  the 
chair  and  his  revolver  holster  on  the  bureau  in  a  sense 
of  detachment,  as  if  in  the  surroundings  of  civilization 
some  voice  of  civilization  made  him  wish  for  flannels 
in  which  to  dine.  Then  there  came  a  rap  at  the  door, 
and  an  Indian  appeared  with  an  envelope  addressed 
in  feminine  handwriting.  On  the  corner  of  the  page 
within  was  a  palm-tree — a  crest  to  which  anybody  who 
dwelt  on  the  desert  might  be  entitled;  and  Jack  read: 

"DEAR  MR.  WINGFIELD: 

"Please  don't  tell  father  about  that  horrible  business 
on  the  pass.  It  will  worry  him  unnecessarily  and 
might  interfere  with  my  afternoon  rides,  which  are 
everything  to  me.  There  is  not  the  slightest  danger 
in  the  future.  After  this  I  shall  always  go  armed. 
"Sincerely  yours, 

"MARY  EWOLD."  • 

The  shower  had  put  him  in  such  lively  humor  that 
his  answer  was  born  in  a  flash  from  memory  of  her 
own  catechising  of  him  on  Galeria. 

"First,  I  must  ask  if  you  know  how  to  shoot,"  he 
scribbled  beneath  her  signature. 

The  Indian  seemed  hardly  out  of  the  doorway  be- 
fore he  was  back  with  a  reply: 

"I  do,  or  I  would  not  go  armed,"  it  said. 


A  SMILE  AND  A  SQUARE  CHIN        41 

She  had  capped  his  satire  with  satire  whose  prick 
was,  somehow,  delicious.  He  regarded  the  sweep  of 
her  handwriting  with  a  lingering  interest,  studying  the 
swift  nervous  strokes  before  he  sent  the  note  back  with 
still  another  postscript: 

"Of  course  I  had  never  meant  to  tell  anybody,"  he 
wrote.  "It  is  not  a  thing  to  think  of  in  that  way." 

This,  he  thought,  must  be  the  end  of  the  correspond- 
ence; but  he  was  wrong.  The  peripatetic  go-between 
reappeared,  and  under  Jack's  last  communication  was 
written,  "Thank  you!"  He  could  hardly  write  "Wel- 
come!" in  return.  It  was  strictly  a  case  of  nothing 
more  to  say  by  either  duellist.  In  an  impulse  he 
slipped  the  sheet,  with  its  palm  symbolic  of  desert 
mystery  and  oasis  luxuriance,  into  his  pocket. 

"Here  I  am  in  the  midst  of  the  shucks  and  biting 
into  the  meat  of  the  kernel,"  said  Jasper  Ewold,  as 
Jack  entered  the  library  to  find  him  standing  in  the 
midst  of  wrappings  which  he  had  dropped  on  the  floor; 
"yes,  biting  into  very  rich  meat." 

He  held  up  the  book  which  was  evidently  the  one 
that  had  balanced  uncertainly  on  the  pile  which  Jack 
had  brought  from  the  post-office. 

"Professor  Giuccamini's  researches!  It  is  as  inter- 
esting as  a  novel.  But  come!  You  are  hungry!" 

Book  in  hand,  and  without  removing  his  tortoise- 
shell  spectacles,  he  passed  out  into  the  garden  at  the 
rear.  There  a  cloth  was  laid  under  a  pavilion. 

"In  a  country  where  it  never  rains,"  said  the  host, 
"where  it  is  eternal  spring,  walls  to  a  house  are  con- 
ventions on  which  to  stack  books  and  hang  pictures. 
Mary  has  chosen  nature  for  her  decorative  effect — 
cheaper,  even,  than  mine.  In  the  distance  is  Galeria; 
in  the  foreground,  what  was  desert  six  years  ago." 


42  OVER  THE  PASS 

The  overhead  lamp  deepened  to  purple  the  magenta 
of  the  bougainvillea  vines  running  up  the  pillars  of  the 
pavilion;  made  the  adjacent  rows  of  peony  blossoms 
a  pure,  radiant  white;  while  beyond,  in  the  shadows, 
was  a  broad  path  between  rows  of  young  palms. 

Mary  appeared  around  a  hedge  which  hid  the  open- 
air  kitchen.  The  girl  of  the  gray  riding-habit  was 
transformed  into  a  girl  in  white.  Jack  saw  her  as  a 
domestic  being.  He  guessed  that  she  had  seen  that 
the  table  was  set  right;  that  she  had  had  a  look-in 
at  the  cooking;  that  the  hands  whose  boast  it  was 
that  they  could  shoot,  had  picked  the  jonquils  in  the 
slender  bronze  vase  on  the  table. 

"Father,  there  you  are  again,  bringing  a  book  to 
the  dining-room  against  the  rules,"  she  warned  him; 
"against  all  your  preachments  about  reading  at  meals!" 

"That's  so,  Mary,"  said  Jasper  Ewold,  absently,  re- 
garding the  book  as  if  some  wicked  genius  had  placed 
it  in  his  hand  quite  unbeknown  to  him.  "But,  Mary, 
it  is  Professor  Giuccamini  at  last!  Giuccamini  that  I 
have  waited  for  so  long !  I  beg  your  pardon,  Sir  Chaps ! 
When  I  have  somebody  to  talk  to  I  stand  doubly 
accused.  Books  at  dinner!  I  descend  into  dotage!" 

In  disgust  he  started  toward  the  house  with  the  book. 
But  in  the  very  doorway  he  paused  and,  reopening  the 
book,  turned  three  or  four  pages  with  ravenous  interest. 

"Giuccamini  and  I  agree!"  he  shouted.  "He  says 
there  is  no  doubt  that  Burlamacchi  and  Pico  were  cor- 
rect. Cosmo  de'  Medici  did  call  Savonarola  to  his 
death-bed,  and  I  am  glad  of  it.  I  like  good  stories  to 
turn  out  true!  But  here  I  have  a  listener — a  live  lis- 
tener, and  I  ramble  on  about  dead  tyrants  and  mar- 
tyrs. I  apologize — I  apologize!"  and  he  disappeared 
in  the  library. 


A  SMILE  AND  A  SQUARE  CHIN        43 

"Father  does  not  let  me  leave  books  in  the  living- 
room,  which  is  his.  Why  should  he  bring  them  to 
the  dining-room,  which  is  mine?"  Mary  explained. 

"There  must  be  law  in  every  household,"  Jack 
agreed. 

"Yes,  somebody  fresh  to  talk  to,  at,  around,  and 
through!"  called  Jasper  Ewold,  as  he  reappeared. 
"Yes,  and  over  your  head;  otherwise  I  shall  not  be 
flattered  by  my  own  conversation." 

"He  glories  in  being  an  intellectual  snob,"  Mary 
said.  "Please  pretend  at  times  not  to  understand 
him." 

"Thank  you,  Mary.  You  are  the  corrective  that 
keeps  my  paternal  superiority  in  balance,"  answered 
her  father,  with  a  comprehending  wave  of  his  hand  in- 
dicating his  sense  of  humor  at  the  same  time  as  playful 
insistence  on  his  role  as  forensic  master  of  the  uni- 
verse. 

How  he  did  talk!  He  was  a  mill  to  which  all  in- 
tellectual grist  was  welcome.  Over  its  wheel  the  water 
ran  now  singing,  again  with  the  roar  of  a  cataract. 
He  changed  theme  with  the  relish  of  one  who  rambles  at 
will,  and  the  emotion  of  every  opinion  was  written  on 
the  big  expanse  of  his  features  and  enforced  with  ges- 
tures. He  talked  of  George  Washington,  of  Andrea 
del  Sarto,  of  melon-growing,  trimming  pepper-trees, 
the  Divina  Commedia,  fighting  rose-bugs,  of  Schopen- 
hauer and  of  Florence — a  great  deal  about  Florence,  a 
city  that  seemed  to  hang  in  his  mind  as  a  sort  of  Renais- 
sance background  for  everything  else,  even  for  melon- 
growing. 

"You  are  getting  over  my  head!"  Jack  warned  him 
at  times,  politely. 


44  OVER  THE  PASS 

"  That  is  the  trouble,"  said  Jasper  Ewold.  "  Consider 
the  hardship  of  being  the  one  wise  man  in  the  world! 
I  find  it  lonely,  inconvenient,  stupefying.  Why,  I 
can't  even  convince  Jim  Galway  that  I  know  more 
about  dry  farming  than  he!" 

Jack  listened  raptly,  his  face  glowing.  Once,  when 
he  looked  in  his  host's  direction  suddenly,  after  speak- 
ing to  Mary,  he  found  that  he  was  the  object  of  the 
same  inquiring  scrutiny  that  he  had  been  on  the  porch. 
In  lulls  he  caught  the  old  man's  face  in  repose.  It 
had  sadness,  then,  the  sadness  of  wreckage;  sadness 
against  which  he  seemed  to  fence  in  his  wordy  feints 
and  thrusts. 

"Christian  civilization  began  in  the  Tuscan  val- 
ley," the  philosopher  proceeded,  harking  back  to  the 
book  which  had  arrived  by  the  evening's  mail.  "  Flor- 
ence was  a  devil — Florence  was  divine.  They  raised 
geniuses  and  devils  and  martyrs:  the  most  cloud- 
topping  geniuses,  the  worst  devils,  the  most  saintly 
martyrs.  But  better  than  being  a  drone  in  a  Florence 
pension  is  all  this" — with  a  wave  of  his  hand  to  the 
garden  and  the  stars — "which  I  owe  to  Mary  and  the 
little  speck  on  her  lungs  which  brought  us  here  after — 
after  we  had  found  that  we  had  not  as  much  money 
as  we  thought  we  had  and  an  old  fellow  who  had 
been  an  idling  student,  mostly  living  abroad  all  his 
life,  felt  the  cramp  of  the  material  facts  of  board- 
and-clothes  money.  It  made  Mary  well.  It  made 
me  know  the  fulness  of  wisdom  of  the  bee  and  the 
ant,  and  it  brought  me  back  to  the  spirit  of  America 
— the  spirit  of  youth  and  accomplishment.  Instead  of 
dreaming  of  past  cities,  I  set  out  to  make  a  city  like  a 
true  American.  Here  we  came  to  camp  in  our  first 


A  SMILE  AND  A  SQUARE  CHIN        45 

travelled  delight  of  desert  spaces  for  her  sake;  and 
here  we  brought  what  was  left  of  the  fortune  and 
started  a  settlement." 

The  spectator-philosopher  attitude  of  audience  to 
the  world's  stage  passed.  He  became  the  builder  and 
the  rancher,  enthusiastically  dwelling  on  the  growth 
of  orchards  and  gardens  in  expert  fondness.  As  Jack 
listened,  the  fragrance  of  flowers  was  in  his  nostrils 
and  in  intervals  between  Jasper  Ewold's  sentences  he 
seemed  to  hear  the  rustle  of  borning  leaf-fronds  break- 
ing the  silence.  But  the  narrative  was  not  an  idyll. 
Toil  and  patience  had  been  the  handmaidens  of  the 
fecundity  of  the  soil.  Prosperity  had  brought  an  en- 
tail of  problems.  Jasper  Ewold  mentioned  them  briefly, 
as  if  he  would  not  ask  a  guest  to  share  the  shadows 
which  they  brought  to  his  brow. 

"The  honey  of  our  prosperity  brings  us  something 
besides  the  bees.  It  brings  those  who  would  share  the 
honey  without  work,"  said  he.  "It  brings  the  Bill 
Lang  hive  and  Pete  Leddy." 

At  the  mention  of  the  name,  Jack's  and  Mary's 
glances  met. 

"You  have  promised  not  to  tell,"  hers  was  saying. 

"I  will  not,"  his  was  answering. 

But  clearly  he  had  grasped  the  fact  that  Little  Rivers 
was  getting  out  of  its  patron's  hands,  and  every  honest 
man  in  that  community  wanted  to  be  rid  of  Pete  Leddy. 

"I  should  think  your  old  friend,  Cosmo  de'  Medici, 
would  have  found  a  way,"  Jack  suggested. 

"Cosmo  is  for  talk,"  said  Mary.  "At  heart  father 
is  a  Quaker." 

"  Some  are  for  lynching,"  said  Jasper  Ewold,  thought- 
fully. "Begin  to  promote  order  with  disorder  and 


46  OVER  THE  PASS 

where  will  you  end?"  he  inquired,  belligerently.  "This 
is  not  the  Middle  Ages.  This  is  the  Little  Rivers  of 
peace." 

Then,  after  a  quotation  from  Cardinal  Newman, 
which  seemed  pretty  far-fetched  to  deal  with  desert 
ruffians,  he  was  away  again,  setting  out  fruit  trees  and 
fighting  the  scale. 

"And  our  Date  Tree  Wonderful!"  Le  continued. 
"This  year  we  get  our  first  fruit,  unless  the  book  is 
wrong.  You  cannot  realize  what  this  first-born  of 
promise  means  to  Little  Rivers.  Under  the  magic  of 
water  it  completes  the  cycle  of  desert  fecundity,  from 
Scotch  oats  and  Irish  potatoes  to  the  Arab's  bread. 
Bananas  I  do  not  include.  Never  where  the  banana 
grows  has  there  been  art  or  literature,  a  good  priest- 
hood, unimpassioned  law-makers,  honest  bankers,  or 
a  noble  knighthood.  It  is  just  a  little  too  warm.  Here 
we  can  build  a  civilization  which  neither  roasts  us  in 
summer  nor  freezes  us  in  winter." 

There  was  a  fluid  magnetism  in  the  rush  of  Jasper 
Ewold's  junketing  verbiage  which  carried  the  listener 
on  the  bosom  of  a  pleasant  stream.  Jack  was  suddenly 
reminded  that  it  must  be  very  late  and  he  had  far 
overstayed  the  retiring  hour  of  the  desert,  where  the 
Eternal  Painter  commands  early  rising. 

"Going — going  so  soon!"  protested  Jasper  Ewold. 

"So  late!"  Jack  smiled  back. 

To  prove  that  it  was,  he  called  attention  to  the  fact, 
when  they  passed  through  the  living-room  to  the 
veranda,  that  not  a  light  remained  in  any  ranch-house. 

"  I  have  not  started  my  talk  yet,"  said  Jasper.  "  But 
next  time  you  come  I  will  really  make  a  beginning — 
and  you  shall  see  the  Date  Tree  Wonderful." 


A  SMILE  AND  A  SQUARE  CHIN        47 

"I  go  by  the  morning  train,"  Jack  returned. 

"So!  so!"  mused  Jasper.  "So!  so!  "  he  objected, 
but  not  gloomily.  "I  get  a  good  listener  only  to  lose 
him!" 

But  Jack  was  hardly  conscious  of  the  philosopher's 
words.  In  that  interval  he  had  still  another  glimpse 
of  Mary's  eyes  without  the  veil  and  saw  deeper  than 
he  had  before;  saw  vast  solitudes,  inviting  yet  offer- 
ing no  invitation,  where  bright  streams  seemed  to 
flash  and  sing  under  the  sunlight  and  then  disappear 
in  a  desert.  That  was  her  farewell  to  the  easy  traveller 
who  had  stopped  to  do  her  a  favor  on  the  trail.  And 
he  seemed  to  ask  nothing  more  in  that  spellbound 
second;  nor  did  he  after  the  veil  had  fallen,  and  he 
acquitted  himself  of  some  spoken  form  of  thanks  for 
an  evening  of  happiness. 

"A  pleasant  journey!"  Mary  said. 

"Luck,  Sir  Chaps,  luck!"  called  Jasper  Ewold. 

Jack's  easy  stride,  as  he  passed  out  into  the  night, 
confirmed  the  last  glimpse  of  his  smiling,  whimsical 
"I  don't  care"  attitude,  which  never  minded  the  danger 
sign  on  the  precipice's  edge. 

"He  does  not  really  want  to  go  back  to  New  York," 
Mary  remarked,  and  was  surprised  to  find  that  she 
had  spoken  her  thought  aloud. 

"I  hardly  agree  with  that  opinion,"  said  her  father 
absently,  his  thoughts  far  afield  from  the  fetter  of  his 
words.  "But  of  one  thing  I  am  sure.  John  Wing- 
field!  A  smile  and  a  square  chinl" 


VI 

OBLIVION  IS  NOT  EASY 

"A  smile  and  a  square  chin!"  Mary  repeated,  as 
they  went  back  into  the  living-room. 

"Yes,  hasn't  he  both,  this  Wingfield?"  asked  her 
father. 

"This  Wingfield"— on  the  finish  of  the  sentence 
there  was  a  halting,  appreciable  accent.  He  moved 
toward  the  table  with  the  listlessness  of  some  enor- 
mous automaton  of  a  man  to  whom  every  step  of  exist- 
ence was  a  step  in  a  treadmill.  There  was  a  heavy 
sadness  about  his  features  which  rarely  came,  and  al- 
ways startled  her  when  it  did  come  with  a  fear  that 
they  had  so  set  in  gloom  that  they  would  never  change. 
He  raised  his  hand  to  the  wick  screw  of  the  lamp, 
waiting  for  her  to  pass  through  the  room  before  turning 
off  the  flame  which  bathed  him  in  its  rays,  giving  him 
the  effect  of  a  Rodinesque  incarnation  of  memory. 

Any  melancholy  that  beset  him  was  her  own  enemy, 
to  be  fought  and  cajoled.  Mary  slipped  to  his  side, 
dropping  her  head  on  his  shoulder  and  patting  his  cheek. 
But  this  magic  which  had  so  frequently  rallied  him 
brought  only  a  transient,  hazy  smile  and  in  its  company 
what  seemed  a  random  thought. 

"And  you  and  he  came  down  the  pass  together? 
Yes,  yes!"  he  said.  His  tone  had  the  vagueness  of 
one  drawing  in  from  the  sea  a  net  that  seemed  to  have 
no  end. 

48 


OBLIVION  IS  NOT  EASY  49 

Had  Jack  Wingfield  been  more  than  a  symbol? 
Had  he  brought  something  more  than  an  expression 
of  culture,  manner,  and  ease  of  a  past  which  nothing 
could  dim?  Had  he  suggested  some  personal  relation 
to  that  past  which  her  father  preferred  to  keep  unex- 
plained? These  questions  crowded  into  her  mind 
speculatively.  They  were  seeking  a  form  of  convey- 
ance when  she  realized  that  she  had  been  adrift  with 
imaginings.  He  was  getting  older.  She  must  expect 
his  preoccupation  and  his  absent-mindedness  to  be- 
come more  exacting. 

"Yes,  yes!"  His  voice  had  risen  to  its  customary 
sonority;  his  eyes  were  twinkling;  all  the  hard  lines 
had  become  benignant  wrinkles  of  Olympian  charm. 
"Yes,  yes!  You  and  this  funny  tourist!  What  a  desert 
it  is!  I  wonder — now,  I  wonder  if  he  will  go  aboard 
the  Pullman  in  that  stage  costume.  But  come,  come, 
Mary!  It's  bedtime  for  all  pastoral  workers  and  sub- 
jects of  the  Eternal  Painter.  Off  you  go,  or  we  shall 
be  playing  blind-man's-buff  in  the  darkl"  He  was 
chuckling  as  he  turned  down  the  wick.  "His  enor- 
mous spurs,  and  Jag  Ear  and  Wrath  of  God ! "  he  said. 

Her  fancy  ran  dancing  rejoicingly  with  his  mood. 

"Don't  forget  the  name  of  his  pony!"  she  called 
merrily  from  the  stairs.  "  It's  P.  D." 

"  P.  D. ! "  said  her  father,  with  the  disappointment  of 
one  tempted  by  a  good  morsel  which  he  finds  taste- 
less. "  There  he  seems  to  have  descended  to  alphabetic 
commonplace.  No  imagery  in  that!" 

"He  is  a  slow,  reliable  pony,"  put  in  Mary,  "with- 
out the  Q." 

"Pretty  Damn,  without  the  Quick  I  Oh,  I  know 
slang!" 


50  OVER  THE  PASS 

Jasper  Ewold  burst  into  laughter.  It  was  still  echo- 
ing through  the  house  when  she  entered  her  room.  As 
it  died  away  it  seemed  to  sound  hollow  and  veiled, 
when  the  texture  of  sunny,  transparent  solidity  in  his 
laugh  was.  its  most  pronounced  characteristic. 

Probably  this,  too,  was  imagination,  Mary  thought. 
It  had  been  an  overwrought  day,  whose  events  had 
made  inconsiderable  things  supreme  over  logic.  She  al- 
ways slept  well;  she  would  sleep  easily  to-night,  because 
it  was  so  late.  But  she  found  herself  staring  blankly 
into  the  darkness  and  her  thoughts  ranging  in  a  shuttle 
play  of  incoherency  from  the  moment  that  Leddy 
had  ^approached  her  on  the  pass  till  a  stranger,  whom 
she  never  expected  to  see  again,  walked  away  into  the 
night.  What  folly!  What  folly  to  keep  awake  over 
an  incident  of  desert  life!  But  was  it  folly?  What 
sublime  egoism  of  isolated  provincialism  to  imagine 
that  it  had  been  anything  but  a  great  event!  Natur- 
ally, quiet,  desert  nerves  must  still  be  quivering  after 
the  strain.  Inevitably,  they  would  not  calm  instantly, 
particularly  as  she  had  taken  coffee  for  supper.  She 
was  wroth  about  the  coffee,  though  she  had  taken  less 
than  usual  that  evening. 

She  heard  the  clock  strike  one;  she  heard  it  strike 
two,  and  three.  And  he,  on  his  part — this  Sir  Chaps 
who  had  come  so  abruptly  into  her  life  and  evidently 
set  old  passions  afire  in  her  father's  mind — of  course 
he  was  sleeping!  That  was  the  exasperating  phlegm 
of  him.  He  would  sleep  on  horseback,  riding  toward 
the  edge  of  a  precipice! 

"A  smile  and  a  square  chin — and  dreamy  vagueness," 
she  kept  repeating. 

The  details  of  the  scene  in  the  store  recurred  with  a 


OBLIVION  IS  NOT  EASY  51 

vividness  which  counting  a  flock  of  sheep  as  they  went 
over  a  stile  or  any  other  trick  for  outwitting  insomnia 
could  not  drive  from  her  mind.  Then  Pete  Leddy's 
final  look  of  defiance  and  Jack  Wingfield's  attitude  in 
answer  rose  out  of  the  pantomime  in  merciless  clear- 
ness. 

All  the  indecisiveness  of  the  interchange  of  guesses 
and  rehearsed  impressions  was  -gone.  She  got  a  mes- 
sage, abruptly  and  convincingly.  This  incident  of  the 
pass  was  not  closed.  An  ultimatum  had  been  ex- 
changed. Death  lay  between  these  two  men.  Jack 
had  accepted  the  issue. 

The  clock  struck  four  and  five.  Before  it  struck 
again  daylight  would  have  come;  and  before  night  came 
again,  what?  To  lie  still  in  the  torment  of  this  new 
experience  of  wakefulness  with  its  peculiar,  half-recog- 
nized forebodings,  had  become  unbearable.  She  rose 
and  dressed  and  went  down  stairs  softly,  candle  in 
hand,  aware  only  that  every  agitated  fibre  of  her  being 
was  whipping  her  to  action  which  should  give  some 
muscular  relief  from  the  strain  of  her  overwrought 
faculties.  She  would  go  into  the  garden  and  walk 
there,  waiting  for  sunrise.  But  at  the  edge  of  the  path 
she  was  arrested  by  a  shadow  coming  from  the  ser- 
vants' sleeping-quarters.  It  was  Ignacio,  the  little 
Indian  who  cared  for  her  horse,  ran  errands,  and  fought 
garden  bugs  for  her — Ignacio,  the  note-bearer. 

"Sefiorita!  senorita!"  he  exclaimed,  and  his  voice, 
vibrant  with  something  stronger  than  surprise,  had  a 
certain  knowing  quality,  as  if  he  understood  more 
than  he  dared  to  utter.  "Senorita,  you  rise  early!" 

"Sometimes  one  likes  to  look  at  the  morning  stars," 
she  remarked. 


52  OVER  THE  PASS 

But  there  were  no  stars;  only  a  pale  moon,  as  Ignacio 
could  see  for  himself. 

"Senorita,  that  young  man  who  was  here  and  Pete 
Leddy — do  you  know,  senorita?" 

"The  young  man  who  came  down  from  the  pass 
with  me,  you  mean?"  she  asked,  inwardly  shamed  at 
her  simulation  of  casual  curiosity. 

"Yes,  he  and  Leddy — bad  blood  between  them!" 
said  Ignacio.  "You  no  know,  senorita?  They  fight 
at  daybreak." 

The  pantomime  in  the  store,  Jack's  form  disappear- 
ing with  its  easy  step  into  the  night,  analyzed  in  the 
light  of  this  news  became  the  natural  climax  of  a  series 
of  events  all  under  the  spell  of  fatality. 

"Come,  Ignacio!"  she  said.  "We  must  hurry!" 
And  she  started  around  the  house  toward  the  street. 


vn 

WHAT  HAPPENED  AT  LANG'S 

While  Jack  had  been  playing  the  pioneer  of  rural 
free  delivery  in  Little  Rivers,  Pete  Leddy,  in  the  rear 
of  Bill  Lang's  store,  was  refusing  all  stimulants,  but 
indulging  in  an  unusually  large  cud  of  tobacco. 

"Liquor  ain't  no  help  in  drawing  a  bead,"  he  ex- 
plained to  the  loungers  who  followed  him  through  the 
door  after  Jack  had  gone. 

If  Pete  did  not  want  to  drink  it  was  not  discreet  to 
press  him,  considering  the  mood  he  was  in.  The  others 
took  liberal  doses,  which  seemed  only  to  heighten  the 
detail  of  the  drama  which  they  had  witnessed.  To 
Mary  it  had  been  all  pantomime;  to  them  it  was  dy- 
namic with  language.  It  was  something  beyond  any 
previous  contemplation  of  possibility  in  their  cosmos. 

The  store  had  been  enjoying  an  average  evening. 
All  present  were  expressing  their  undaunted  faith  in 
the  invincibility  of  James  J.  Jeffries,  when  a  smiling 
stranger  appeared  in  the  doorway.  He  was  dressed 
like  a  regular  cowboy  dude.  His  like  might  have  ap- 
peared on  the  stage,  but  had  never  been  known  to  get 
off  a  Pullman  in  Arizona.  And  the  instant  he  ap- 
peared, up  flashed  Pete  Leddy's  revolver. 

The  gang  had  often  discussed  when  and  how  Pete 
would  get  his  seventh  victim,  and  here  they  were  about 
to  be  witnesses  of  the  deed.  Instinct  taught  them 
53 


54  OVER  THE  PASS 

the  proper  conduct  on  such  occasions.  The  tenderfoot 
was  as  good  as  dead;  but,  being  a  tenderfoot  and  nat- 
urally a  bad  shot  and  prone  to  excitement,  he  might 
draw  and  fire  wild.  They  ducked  with  the  avidity  of 
woodchucks  into  their  holes — all  except  Jim  Galway, 
who  remained  leaning  against  the  counter. 

"I  gin  ye  warning!"  they  heard  Pete  say,  and 
closed  their  eyes  involuntarily — all  except  Jim  Galway 
— with  their  last  impression  the  tenderfoot's  ingenuous 
smile  and  the  gleam  on  Pete's  gun-barrel.  They 
waited  for  the  report,  as  Mary  had;  and  then  they 
heard  steps  and  looked  up  to  see  that  dude  tender- 
foot, still  smiling,  going  straight  toward  the  muzzle 
pointed  at  his  head,  his  hands  at  his  side  in  no  at- 
tempt to  draw.  The  thing  was  incredible  and  super- 
natural. 

"Pete  is  letting  him  come  close  first,"  they  thought. 

But  there,  unbelievable  as  it  was,  Pete  was  lowering 
his  revolver  and  the  tenderfoot's  hand  was  on  his 
shoulder  in  a  friendly,  explanatory  position.  Pete 
seemed  in  a  trance,  without  will-power  over  his  trig- 
ger finger;  and  Pete  was  the  last  man  in  the  world  that 
you  would  expect  to  lose  his  nerve.  Jim  Galway  being 
the  one  calm  observer,  whose  vision  had  not  been  dis- 
turbed by  precipitancy  in  taking  cover,  let  us  have 
his  version. 

"He  just  walked  over  to  Pete — that's  all  I  can  say — 
walked  over  to  him,  simple  and  calm,  like  he  was  going 
to  ask  for  a  match.  All  I  could  think  of  and  see  was 
his  smile  right  into  that  muzzle  and  the  glint  in  his 
eyes,  which  were  looking  into  Pete's.  Someway  you 
couldn't  shoot  into  that  smile  and  that  glint,  which 
was  sort  of  saying,  '  Go  ahead !  I'm  leaving  it  to  you 


WHAT  HAPPENED  AT  LANG'S          55 

and  I  don't  care!' — just  as  if  a  flash  of  powder  was  all 
the  same  to  him  as  a  flash  of  lightning." 

The  desert  had  given  Jack  life;  and  it  would  seem 
as  if  what  the  desert  had  given,  it  might  take  away. 
He  was  not  going  to  humble  himself  by  throwing  up 
his  arms  or  standing  still  for  execution.  He  was  on  his 
way  into  the  store  and  he  continued  on  his  way.  If 
something  stopped  him,  then  he  would  not  have  to 
take  the  train  East  in  the  morning. 

"Now  if  you  want  to  kill  me,  Pete  Leddy,"  the  as- 
tonished group  heard  this  stranger  say,  "why,  I'm  not 
going  to  deny  you  the  chance.  But  I  don't  want  you 
to  do  it  just  out  of  impulse,  and  I  know  that  is  not 
your  own  reasoned  way.  You  certainly  would  want 
sporting  rules  to  prevail  and  that  I  should  have  an 
equal  chance  of  killing  you.  So  we  will  go  outside, 
stand  off  any  number  of  paces  you  say,  let  our  gun- 
barrels  hang  down  even  with  the  seams  of  our  trousers, 
and  wait  for  somebody  to  say  'one,  two,  three — fire!'  " 

Not  once  had  that  peculiar  smile  faded  from  Jack'.- 
lips  or  the  glint  in  his  eyes  diverted  from  its  probe  of 
Leddy's  eyes.  His  voice  went  well  with  the  smile  and 
with  an  undercurrent  of  high  voltage  which  seemed 
the  audible  corollary  of  the  glint.  Every  man  knew 
that,  despite  his  gay  adornment,  he  was  not  bluffing. 
He  had  made  his  proposition  in  deadly  earnest  and 
was  ready  to  carry  it  out.  Pete  Leddy  shuffled  and 
bit  the  ends  of  his  moustache,  and  his  face  was  drawn 
and  white  and  his  shoulder  burning  under  the  easy 
grip  of  Jack's  hand.  From  the  bore  of  the  unremitting 
glance  that  had  confounded  him  he  shifted  his  gaze 
sheepishly. 

"  Oh,  h — 1 ! "  he  said,  and  the  tone,  in  its  disgust  and 


56  OVER  THE  PASS 

its  attempt  to  laugh  off  the  incident,  gave  the  simplicity 
of  an  exclamation  from  his  limited  vocabulary  its  char- 
acter. "Oh,  h — 1!  I  was  just  trying  you  out  as  a  ten- 
derfoot—a  little  joke!" 

At  this,  all  the  crowd  laughed  in  an  explosive  breath 
of  relief.  The  inflection  of  the  laugh  made  Pete  go 
red  and  look  challengingly  from  face  to  face,  with  the 
result  that  all  became  piously  sober. 

"Then  it  is  all  right?  I  meant  in  no  way  to  wound 
your  feelings  or  even  your  susceptibilities,"  said  Jack; 
and,  accepting  the  incident  as  closed,  he  turned  to  the 
counter  and  asked  for  the  Ewold  mail. 

Free  from  that  smile  and  the  glint  of  the  eyes,  Pete 
came  to  in  a  torrent  of  reaction.  He,  with  six  notches 
on  his  gun-handle,  had  been  trifled  with  by  a  grinning 
tenderfoot.  Rage  mounted  red  to  his  brow.  No  man 
who  had  humiliated  him  should  live.  He  would  have 
shot  Jack  in  the  back  if  it  had  not  been  for  Jim  Gal- 
way,  lean  as  a  lath,  lantern-jawed,  with  deep-set  blue 
eyes,  his  bearing  different  from  that  of  the  other 
loungers.  Jim  had  not  joined  in  the  laugh  over  Pete's 
explanation;  he  had  remained  impassive  through  the 
whole  scene;  but  the  readiness  with  which  he  knocked 
Leddy's  revolver  down  showed  that  this  immovability 
had  let  nothing  escape  his  quiet  observation. 

When  Jack  looked  around  and  understood  what  had 
passed,  his  face  was  without  the  smile.  It  was  set  and 
his  body  had  stiffened  free  of  the  counter. 

"I'll  take  the  gun  away  from  him.  It's  high  time 
somebody  did,"  said  Galway. 

"  I  think  you  had  better,  if  that  is  the  only  way  that 
he  knows  how  to  fight,"  said  Jack.  "  I  have  wondered 
how  he  got  the  six.  Presumably  he  murdered  them." 


WHAT  HAPPENED  AT  LANG'S          57 

"To  their  faces,  as  I'll  get  you!"  Leddy  answered. 
"I'll  play  your  way  now,  one,  two,  three — fire!" 

Galway,  convinced  that  this  stranger  did  not  know 
how  to  shoot,  turned  to  Jack: 

"It's  not  worth  your  being  a  target  for  a  dead  shot," 
he  said. 

"In  the  morning,  yes,"  answered  Jack;  and  he  was 
smiling  again  in  a  way  that  swept  the  audience  with 
uncanniness.  "But  to-night  I  am  engaged.  Make  it 
early  to-morrow,  as  I  have  to  take  the  first  train  East." 

"Well,  are  you  going  to  let  me  go?"  Leddy  asked 
Jim,  while  he  looked  in  appeal  to  the  loungers,  who 
were  his  men. 

"Yes,  by  all  means,"  Jack  told  Galway.  "And  as 
I  shall  want  a  man  with  me,  may  I  rely  on  you?  Four 
of  us  will  be  enough,  with  a  fifth  to  give  the  word." 

"Ropey  Smith  can  go  with  me,"  said  Leddy. 

It  scarcely  occurred  to  them  to  give  the  name  of  duel 
to  this  meeting,  which  Jack  held  was  the  only  fair  way 
when  one  felt  that  he  must  have  satisfaction  from  an 
adversary  in  the  form  of  death.  An  arroyo  a  mile  from 
town  was  chosen  and  the  time  dawn,  for  a  meeting 
which  was  to  reverse  the  ethics  of  that  boasted  fair- 
play  in  which  the  man  who  first  gets  a  bead  is  the  hero. 

"It  seems  a  mediaeval  day  for  me,"  Jack  said,  when 
the  details  were  concluded.  "  Good-night,  gentlemen," 
he  added,  after  Bill  Lang,  with  fingers  that  bungled 
from  agitation,  had  filled  his  arms  with  second-class 
matter. 

Jim  Galway  resumed  his  position,  leaning  against 
the  counter  watchfully  as  the  gang  filed  out  to  the  rear 
to  wet  up,  and  in  his  right  hand,  which  was  in  his  pocket, 
nestled  an  automatic  pistol. 


58  OVER  THE  PASS 

"I'd  shot  Pete  Leddy  dead — 'twas  the  first  real  fair 
chance  within  the  law — so  help  me,  God!  I  would," 
he  thought,  "if  there  had  been  time  to  spare,  and  save 
that  queer  tenderfoot's  life.  And  me  a  second  in  a 
regular  duel!  Well,  I'll  be — but  it  ain't  no  regular 
dueL  One  of  'em  is  going  to  drop — that  is,  the  tender- 
foot is.  I  don't  just  know  how  to  line  him  up.  He 
beats  meF' 


VIII 
ACCORDING  TO  CODE 

It  was  the  supreme  moment  of  night  before  dawn. 
A  violet  mist  shrouded  everything.  The  clamminess 
of  the  dew  touched  Mary's  forehead  and  her  hand 
brushed  the  moisture-laden  hedge  as  she  left  the 
Ewold  yard.  She  remembered  that  Jack  had  said 
that  he  would  camp  near  the  station;  so  there  was  no 
doubt  in  which  direction  she  should  go.  Hastening 
along  the  silent  street,  it  was  easy  for  her  to  imagine 
that  she  and  Ignacio  were  the  only  sentient  beings 
abroad  in  a  world  that  had  stopped  breathing. 

Softly,  impalpably,  with  both  the  graciousness  of  a 
host  and  the  determinedness  of  an  intruder  who  will 
not  be  gainsaid,  the  first  rays  of  morning  light  filtered 
into  the  mist.  The  violet  went  pink.  .  From  pale  pink 
it  turned  to  rose-pink;  to  the  light  of  life  which  was  as 
yet  as  still  as  the  light  of  the  moon.  The  occasional 
giant  cactus  in  the  open  beyond  the  village  outskirts 
ceased  to  be  spectral. 

For  the  first  time  Mary  Ewold  was  in  the  presence 
of  the  wonder  of  daybreak  on  the  desert  without  watch- 
ing for  the  harbinger  of  gold  in  the  V  of  the  pass,  with 
its  revelation  of  a  dome  of  blue  where  unfathomable 
space  had  been.  For  the  first  time  daybreak  interested 
her  only  in  broadening  and  defining  her  vision  of  her 
immediate  surroundings. 

When  the  permeating  softness  suddenly  yielded  to 
59 


60  OVER  THE  PASS 

full  transparency,  spreading  from  the  fanfare  of  the 
rising  sun  come  bolt  above  the  range,  and  the  mist 
rose,  she  left  the  road  at  sight  of  two  ponies  and  a 
burro  in  a  group,  their  heads  together  in  drooping 
fellowship.  She  knew  them  at  once  for  P.  D.,  Wrath 
of  God,  and  Jag  Ear.  Nearby  rose  a  thin  spiral  of 
smoke  and  back  of  it  was  a  huddled  figure,  Firio,  pre- 
paring the  morning  meal.  Animals  and  servant  were 
as  motionless  as  the  cactus.  Evidently  they  did  not 
hear  her  footsteps.  They  formed  a  picture  of  nightly 
oblivion,  unconscious  that  day  had  come.  Firio's  face 
was  hidden  by  his  big  Mexican  hat;  he  did  not  look  up 
even  when  she  was  near.  She  noted  the  two  blanket- 
rolls  where  the  two  comrades  of  the  trail  had  slept. 
She  saw  that  both  were  empty  and  knew  that  Jack 
had  already  gone. 

"  Where  is  Mr.  Wingfield?"  she  demanded,  breath- 
lessly. 

Firio  was  not  startled.  To  be  startled  was  hardly 
in  his  Indian  nature.  The  hat  tipped  upward  and 
under  the  brim-edge  his  black  eyes  gleamed,  as  the 
sandy  soil  all  around  him  gleamed  in  the  dew.  He 
shrugged  his  shoulders  when  he  recognized  the  lady 
speaking  as  the  one  who  had  delayed  him  at  the  foot 
of  the  pass  the  previous  afternoon.  Thanks  to  her, 
he  had  been  left  alone  without  his  master  the  whole 
evening. 

"He  go  to  stretch  his  legs,"  answered  Firio. 

Apparently,  Sir  Chaps  had  been  disinclined  to  dis- 
turb the  routine  of  camp  by  telling  Firio  anything  about 
the  duel. 

"Where  did  he  go?  In  which  direction?"  Mary 
persisted. 


ACCORDING  TO  CODE  61 

r  Firio  moved  the  coffee-pot  closer  to  the  fire.  This 
seemed  to  require  the  concentration  of  all  his  faculties, 
including  that  of  speech.  He  was  a  fit  servant  for  one 
who  took  duels  so  casually. 

"Where?    Where?"    she  repeated. 

"Where?    Have  you  no  tongue?"  snapped  Ignacio. 

Firio  gazed  all  around  as  if  looking  for  Jack;  then 
nodded  in  the  direction  of  rising  ground  which  broke 
at  the  edge  of  a  depression  about  fifty  yards  away.  Her 
impatience  had  made  the  delay  of  a  minute  seem  hours, 
while  the  brilliance  of  the  light  had  now  become  that 
of  broad  day.  She  forgot  all  constraint.  She  ran, 
and  as  she  ran  she  listened  for  a  shot  as  if  it  were 
something  inevitable,  past  due. 

And  then  she  uttered  a  muffled  cry  of  relief,  as  the 
scene  in  a  depression  which  had  been  the  bed  of  an 
ancient  river  flashed  before  her  with  theatric  complete- 
ness. In  the  bottom  of  it  were  five  men,  two  moving 
and  three  stationary.  Jim  Galway  and  Ropey  Smith 
were  walking  side  by  side,  keeping  a  measured  step  as. 
they  paced  off  a  certain  distance,  while  Bill  Lang  and 
Pete  Leddy  and  Jack  stood  by.  Leddy  and  Lang  were 
watching  the  process  inflexibly.  Jack  was  in  the  cos- 
tume which  had  flushed  her  curiosity  so  vividly  on  the 
pass  and  he  appeared  the  same  amused,  disinterested 
and  wondering  traveller  who  had  then  come  upon 
strange  doings. 

She  stopped,  her  temples  throbbing  giddily,  her 
breaths  coming  in  gasps;  stopped  to  gain  mastery  of 
herself  before  she  decided  what  she  would  do  next.  On 
the  opposite  bank  of  the  arroyo  was  a  line  of  heads, 
like  those  of  infantry  above  a  parapet,  and  she  com- 
prehended that,  in  the  same  way  that  news  of  a  cock- 


62  OVER  THE  PASS 

fight  travels,  the  gallery  gods  of  Little  Rivers  had  re- 
ceived a  tip  of  a  sporting  event  so  phenomenal  that  it 
changed  the  sluggards  among  them  into  early  risers. 
They  were  making  themselves  comfortable  lying  flat 
on  their  stomachs  and  exposing  as  little  as  possible  of 
their  precious  bodies  to  the  danger  of  that  tenderfoot 
firing  wild. 

It  was  a  great  show,  of  which  they  would  miss  no 
detail;  and  all  had  their  interest  whetted  by  some  pos- 
sible new  complication  of  the  plot  when  they  saw  the 
tall,  familiar  figure  of  Jasper  E wold's  daughter  stand- 
ing against  the  skyline.  She  felt  the  greedy  inquiry 
of  their  eyes;  she  guessed  their  thoughts. 

This  new  element  of  the  situation  swept  her  with  a 
realization  of  the  punishment  she  must  suffer  for  that 
chance  meeting  on  Galeria  and  then  with  resentful 
anger,  which  transformed  Jack  Wingfield's  indifference 
to  callous  bravado. 

Must  she  face  that  battery  of  leers  from  the  town 
ruffians  while  she  implored  a  stranger,  who  had  been 
nothing  to  her  yesterday  and  would  be  nothing  to- 
morrow, to  run  away  from  a  combat  which  was  a 
creation  of  his  own  stubbornness?  She  was  in  revolt 
against  herself,  against  him,  and  against  the  whole 
miserable  business.  If  she  proceeded,  public  opinion 
would  involve  her  in  a  sentimental  interest  in  a  stranger. 
She  must  live  with  the  story  forever,  while  to  an  idle 
traveller  it  was  only  an  adventure  at  a  way-station 
on  his  journey. 

She  had  but  to  withdraw  in  feigned  surprise  from  the 
sight  of  a  scene  which  she  had  come  upon  unawares 
and  she  would  be  free  of  any  association  with  it.  For 
all  Little  Rivers  knew  that  she  was  given  to  random 


ACCORDING  TO  CODE  63 

walks  and  rides.  No  one  would  be  surprised  that  she 
was  abroad  at  this  early  hour.  It  would  be  ascribed 
te  the  nonsense  which  afflicted  the  Ewolds,  father  and 
daughter,  about  sunrises. 

Yes,  she  had  been  in  a  nightmare.  With  the  light 
of  day  she  was  seeing  clearly.  Had  she  not  warned 
him  about  Leddy?  Had  not  she  done  her  part? 
Should  she  submit  herself  to  fruitless  humiliation? 
Go  to  him  in  as  much  distress  as  if  his  existence  were 
her  care?  If  he  would  not  listen  to  her  yesterday,  why 
should  she  expect  him  to  listen  to  her  now? 

She  would  return  to  her  garden.  Its  picture  of  con- 
tent and  isolation  called  her  away  from  the  stare  of 
the  faces  on  the  other  bank.  She  turned  on  her  heel 
abruptly,  took  two  or  three  spasmodic  steps  and 
stopped  suddenly,  confronted  with  another  picture — 
one  of  imagination — that  of  Jack  Wingfield  lying  dead. 
The  recollection  of  a  voice,  the  voice  that  had  stopped 
the  approach  of  Leddy's  passion-inflamed  face  to  her 
own  on  the  pass,  sounded  in  her  ears. 

She  faced  around,  drawn  by  something  that  will  and 
reason  could  not  overcome,  to  see  that  Jim  Galway  and 
Ropey  Smith  had  finished  their  task  of  pacing  off  the 
distance.  The  two  combatants  were  starting  for  their 
stations,  their  long  shadows  in  the  slant  of  the  morn- 
ing sunlight  travelling  over  the  sand  like  pursuing 
spectres.  Leddy  went  with  the  quick,  firm  step  which 
bespoke  the  keenness  of  his  desire;  Jack  more  slowly, 
at  a  natural  gait.  His  station  was  so  near  her  that 
she  could  reach  him  with  a  dozen  steps.  And  he  was 
whistling — the  only  sound  in  a  silence  which  seemed 
to  stretch  as  far  as  the  desert — whistling  gaily  in  ap- 
parent unconsciousness  that  the  whole  affair  was  any- 


64  OVER  THE  PASS 

thing  but  play.  The  effect  of  this  was  benumbing. 
It  made  her  muscles  go  limp.  She  sank  down  for  very 
want  of  strength  to  keep  erect;  and  Ignacio,  hardly 
observed,  keeping  close  to  her  dropped  at  her  side. 

"  Ignacio,  tell  the  young  man,  the  one  who  was  our 
guest  last  evening,  that  I  wish  to  see  him! "  she  gasped. 

With  flickering,  shrewd  eyes  Ignacio  had  watched 
her  distress.  He  craved  the  word  that  should  call  him 
to  service  and  was  off  with  a  bound.  His  rushing, 
agitated  figure  was  precipitated  into  a  scene  hard  set 
as  men  on  a  chess-board  in  deadly  serenity.  Leddy 
and  Jack,  were  already  facing  each  other. 

"Seiior!  Senor!"  Ignacio  shouted,  as  he  ran. 
"Seiior  Don't  Care  of  the  Big  Spurs — wait!" 

The  message  which  he  had  to  give  was  his  mistress's 
and,  therefore,  nobody  else's  business.  He  rose  on 
tiptoes  to  whisper  it  into  Jack's  ear.  Jack  listened, 
with  head  bent  to  catch  the  words.  He  looked  over  to 
Mary  for  an  instant  of  intent  silence  and  then  raised 
his  empty  left  hand  in  signal. 

"Sorry,  but  I  must  ask  for  a  little  delay!"  he  called 
to  Leddy.  His  tone  was  wonderful  in  its  politeness 
and  he  bowed  considerately  to  his  adversary. 

"I  thought  it  was  all  bluff!"  Leddy  answered. 
"You'll  get  it,  though — you'll  get  it  in  the  old  way  if 
you  haven't  the  nerve  to  take  it  in  yours!" 

"Really,  I  am  stubbornly  fond  of  my  way,"  Jack 
said.  "I  shall  be  only  a  minute.  That  will  give 
you  time  to  steady  your  nerves,"  he  added,  in  the 
encouraging,  reassuring  strain  of  a  coach  to  a  man 
going  to  the  bat. 

He  was  coming  toward  Mary  with  his  easy,  languid 
gait,  radiant  of  casual  inquiry.  The  time  of  his  steps 


ACCORDING  TO  CODE  65 

seemed  to  be  reckoned  in  succeeding  hammer-beats  in 
her  brain.  He  was  coming  and  she  had  to  find  reasons 
to  keep  him  from  going  back;  because  if  it  had  not 
been  for  her  he  would  be  quite  safe.  Oh,  if  she  could 
only  be  free  of  that  idea  of  obligation  to  him!  All  the 
pain,  the  confusion,  the  embarrassment  was  on  her 
side.  His  very  manner  of  approach,  in  keeping  with 
the  whole  story  of  his  conduct  toward  her,  showed  him 
incapable  of  such  feelings.  She  had  another  reaction. 
She  devoutly  wished  that  she  had  not  sent  for  him. 

Had  not  his  own  perversity  taken  his  fate  out  of  her 
hands?  If  he  preferred  to  die,  why  should  it  be  her 
concern?  Should  she  volunteer  herself  as  a  rescuer  of 
fools?  The  gleaming  sand  of  the  arroyo  rose  in  a  daz- 
zling mist  before  her  eyes,  obscuring  him,  clothing  him 
with  the  unreality  of  a  dream;  and  then,  in  physical 
reality,  he  emerged.  He  was  so  near  as  she  rose  spas- 
modically that  she  could  have  laid  her  hand  on  his 
shoulder.  His  hat  under  his  arm,  he  stood  smiling  in 
the  bland,  questioning  interest  of  a  spectator  happen- 
ing along  the  path,  even  as  he  had  in  her  first  glimpse 
of  him  on  the  pass. 

"I  don't  care!  Goon!  Goon!"  she  was  going  to 
say.  "You  have  made  sport  of  me!  You  make  sport 
of  everything!  Life  itself  is  a  joke  to  you!" 

The  tempest  of  the  words  was  in  her  eyes,  if  it  did 
not  reach  her  tongue's  end.  It  was  halted  by  the  look 
of  hurt  surprise,  of  real  pain,  which  appeared  on  his 
face.  Was  it  possible,  after  all,  that  he  could  feel? 
The  thought  brought  forth  the  passionate  cry  of  her 
mission  after  that  sleepless  night. 

"I  beg  of  you — I  implore  you — don't!" 

Had  anyone  told  her  yesterday  that  she  would  have 


66  OVER  THE  PASS 

been  begging  any  man  in  melodramatic  supplication 
for  anything,  she  would  have  thought  of  herself  as 
mad.  Wasn't  she  mad?  Wasn't  he  mad?  Yet  she 
broke  into  passionate  appeal. 

"It  is  horrible — unspeakable!    I  cannot  bear  it!" 

A  flood  of  color  swept  his  cheeks  and  with  it  came  a 
peculiar,  feminine,  almost  awkward,  gentleness.  His 
air  was  that  of  wordless  humility.  He  seemed  more 
than  ever  an  uncomprehending,  sure  prey  for  Leddy. 

"Don't  you  realize  what  death  is?"  she  asked. 

The  question,  so  earnest  and  searching.,  had  the  con- 
trary effect  on  him.  It  changed  him  back  to  his  care- 
less self.  He  laughed  in  the  way  of  one  who  depre- 
cates another's  illusion  or  passing  fancy.  This  added 
to  her  conviction  that  he  did  not  realize,  that  he  was 
incapable  of  realizing,  his  position. 

"Do  you  think  I  am  about  to  die?"  he  asked  softly. 

"  With  Pete  Leddy  firing  at  you  twenty  yards  away — 
yes!  And  you  pose — you  pose!  If  you  were  human 
you  would  be  serious!" 

"Pose?"  He  repeated  the  word.  It  startled  him, 
mystified  him.  "The  clothes  I  bought  to  please 
Firio,  you  mean?"  he  inquired,  his  face  lighting. 

"  No,  about  death.  It  is  horrible — horrible !  Death 
for  which  I  am  responsible!" 

"Why,  have  you  forgotten  that  we  settled  all  that?" 
he  asked.  "It  was  not  you.  It  was  the  habit  I  had 
i'ormed  of  whistling  in  the  loneliness  of  the  desert.  I 
am  sorry,  now,  that  I  did  not  stick  to  singing,  even  at 
the  expense  of  a  sore  throat." 

Now  he  called  to  Leddy,  and  his  voice,  high-pitched 
and  powerful,  seemed  to  travel  in  the  luminous  air  as 
on  resilient,  invisible  wires. 


ACCORDING  TO  CODE  67 

"Leddy,  wasn't  it  the  way  I  whistled  to  you  the 
first  time  we  met  that  made  you  want  satisfaction? 
You  remember" — and  he  broke  into  a  whistle.  His 
tone  was  different  from  that  to  Leddy  on  the  pass;  the 
whistle  was  different.  It  was  shrill  and  mocking. 

"Yes,  the  whistle!"  yelled  Leddy.  "No  man  can 
whistle  to  me  like  that  and  live!" 

Jack  laughed  as  if  he  appreciated  all  the  possibilities 
of  humor  inherent  in  the  picture  of  the  bloodthirsty 
I>eddy,  the  waiting  seconds  and  the  gallery.  He  turned 
to  Mary  with  a  gesture  of  his  outstretched  hands: 

"There,  you  see!    I  brought  it  on  myself." 

"You  are  brutal!  You  are  without  feeling — you 
are  ridiculous — you — "  she  stormed,  chokingly. 

And  in  face  of  this  he  became  reasoning,  philosoph- 
ical. 

"Yes,  I  admit  that  it  is  all  ridiculous,  even  to  farce, 
this  little  comedie  humaine.  But  we  must  remember 
that  beside  the  age  of  the  desert  none  of  us  last  long. 
Ridiculous,  yes;  but  if  I  will  whistle,  why,  then,  I 
must  play  out  the  game  I've  started." 

He  was  looking  straight  into  her  eyes,  and  there  was 
that  in  his  gaze  which  came  as  a  surprise  and  with 
something  of  the  effect  of  a  blade  out  of  a  scabbard. 
It  chilled  her.  It  fastened  her  inactive  to  the  earth 
with  a  helplessness  that  was  uncanny.  It  mixed  the 
element  of  fear  for  him  with  the  element  of  fear  of 
him. 

"Remember  I  am  of  age — and  I  don't  mind,"  he 
added,  with  the  faintest  glint  of  satire  in  his  reassur- 
ance. 

He  was  walking  away,  with  a  wave  of  his  hand  to 
Leddy;  he  was  going  over  the  precipice's  edge  after 


68  OVER  THE  PASS 

thanking  the  danger  sign.  He  did  not  hasten,  nor 
did  he  loiter.  The  precipice  resolved  itself  into  an 
incident  of  a  journey  of  the  same  order  as  an  ankle- 
deep  stream  trickling  across  a  highway. 


IX 

THE  DEVIL  IS  OUT 

She  had  done  her  best  and  she  had  failed.  What 
reason  was  there  for  her  to  remain?  Should  she  endure 
witnessing  in  reality  the  horror  which  she  had  pictured 
so  vividly  in  imagination?  A  flash  of  fire!  The  fall 
of  a  careening  figure  to  the  earth!  Leddy's  grin  of 
satisfaction!  The  rejoicing  of  his  clan  of  spectators 
over  the  exploit,  while  youth  which  sang  airs  to  the 
beat  of  a  pony's  hoofs  and  knew  the  worship  of  the 
Eternal  Painter  lay  dead! 

What  reason  to  remain  except  to  punish  herself! 
She  would  go.  But  something  banished  reason.  She 
was  held  in  the  leash  of  suspense,  staring  with  clear- 
ness of  vision  in  one  second;  staring  into  a  mist  the 
next;  while  the  coming  and  going  of  Ignacio's  breaths 
between  his  teeth  was  the  only  sound  in  her  ears. 

"Senor  Don't  Care  of  the  Big  Spurs  will  win!"  he 
whispered. 

"He  will?"  she  repeated,  like  one  marvelling,  in  the 
tautness  of  every  nerve  and  muscle,  that  she  had  the 
power  of  speech. 

She  peered  into  Ignacio's  face.  Its  Indian  impas- 
sivity was  gone.  His  lips  were  twitching;  his  eyes 
were  burning  points  between  half-closed  lids. 

"Why?"  she  asked.     "How?" 

"I  know.  I  watch  him.  I  have  seen  a  mountain 
69 


70  OVER  THE  PASS 

lion  asleep  in  a  tree.  His  paw  is  like  velvet.  He 
smiles.  There  seems  no  fight  in  him.  I  know.  There 
is  a  devil,  a  big  devil,  in  Sefior  Don't  Care.  It  sleeps 
so  much  it  very  terrible  when  it  awakes.  And  Pete 
Leddy — he  is  all  the  time  awake;  all  the  time  too  ready. 
Something  in  him  will  make  his  arm  shake  when  the 
moment  to  shoot  comes  and  something  in  Senor  Don't 
Care — his  devil — will  make  his  arm  steady." 

Could  Ignacio  be  right?  Did  Jack  really  know  how 
to  shoot?  Was  he  confident  of  the  outcome?  Were 
his  smiles  the  mask  of  a  conviction  that  he  was  to  kill 
and  not  to  be  killed?  After  all,  had  his  attitude  toward 
her  been  merely  acting?  Had  she  undergone  this 
humiliation  as  the  fish  on  the  line  of  the  mischievous 
play  of  one  who  had  stopped  over  a  train  in  order  to 
do  murder?  No!  If  he  were  capable  of  such  guile 
he  knew  that  Leddy  could  shoot  well  and  that  twenty 
yards  was  a  deadly  range  for  a  good  shot.  He  was 
taking  a  chance  and  the  devil  in  him  was  laughing  at 
the  chance,  while  it  laughed  at  her  for  thinking  that 
he  was  an  innocent  going  to  slaughter  in  expression 
of  a  capricious  sense  of  chivalry. 

"He  will  win — he  will  win  if  Leddy  plays  fair!" 
Ignacio  repeated. 

Now  she  was  telling  herself  that  it  was  solely  for 
the  sake  of  her  conscience  that  she  wanted  to  see  Sefior 
Don't  Care  survive;  solely  for  the  sake  of  her  conscience 
that  she  wanted  to  see  him  go  aboard  the  train  safe. 
After  that,  she  could  forget  ever  having  owed  this 
trifler  the  feeling  of  gratitude  for  a  favor  done.  Liter- 
ally, he  must  live  in  order  to  be  a  dead  and  unremem- 
bered  incident  of  her  existence. 

And  Jack  was  back  at  his  station,  with  the  bright  sun- 


THE  DEVIL  IS  OUT  71 

light  heightening  the  colors  of  his  play  cowboy  attire,  his 
weight  on  the  ball  of  his  right  foot  thrown  well  ahead 
of  the  other,  his  head  up,  but  the  whole  effect  languid, 
even  deferential.  He  seemed  about  to  take  off  his  hat 
to  the  joyous  sky  of  a  fair  day  in  May.  His  shadow 
expressed  the  same  feeling  as  his  pose,  that  of  tranquil 
youth  with  its  eyes  on  the  horizon.  Leddy  had  the 
peculiar  slouch  of  the  desperado,  which  is  associated 
with  the  spread  of  pioneering  civilization  by  the  raucous 
criers  of  red-blooded  individualism.  If  Jack's  bearing 
was  amateurish,  then  Pete's  was  professional  in  its 
threatening  pose;  and  his  shadow,  like  himself,  had  an 
unrelieved  hardness  of  outline. 

Both  drew  their  guns  from  their  holsters  and  lowered 
them  till  the  barrels  lay  even  with  the  trousers  seams. 
They  awaited  the  word  to  fire  which  Bill  Lang,  who 
stood  at  an  angle  equidistant  from  the  two  men,  was 
to  give. 

"Wait!"  Jack  called,  in  a  tone  which  indicated  that 
something  had  recurred  to  him.  Then  a  half  laugh 
from  him  fell  on  the  brilliant,  shining,  hard  silence 
with  something  of  the  sound  of  a  pebble  slipping  over 
glare  ice. 

"  Leddy,  it  has  just  occurred  to  me  that  we  are  both 
foolish — honestly,  we  are!"  he  said.  "The  idea  when 
Arizona  is  so  sparsely  settled  of  our  starting  out  to 
depopulate  it  in  such  a  premeditated  manner  on  such 
a  beautiful  morning,  and  all  because  I  was  such  an 
inept  whistler!  Why,  if  I  had  realized  what  a  per- 
fectly bad  whistler  I  was  I  would  never  have  whistled 
again.  If  my  whistle  hurt  your  feelings  I  am  sorry, 
and  I " 

"No,  you  don't!"  yelled  Leddy.  " I've  waited  long 
enough!  It's  fight,  you 


72  OVER  THE  PASS 

"Oh,  all  right!  You  are  so  emphatic,"  Jack  an- 
swered. His  voice  was  still  pleasant,  but  shot  with 
something  metallic.  The  very  shadow  of  him  seemed 
to  stiffen  with  the  stiffening  of  his  muscles. 

"Ready!"  called  Bill  Lang. 

The  ruling  passion  that  had  carved  six  notches  on 
his  gun-handle  overwhelmed  Pete  Leddy.  At  least, 
let  us  give  him  the  benefit  of  the  doubt  and  say  that 
this  and  not  calculation  was  responsible  for  his  action. 
Before  the  word  for  preparation  was  free  of  Lang's  lips, 
and  without  waiting  for  the  word  to  fire,  his  revolver 
came  up  in  a  swift  quarter-circle.  He  was  sure  of  his 
aim  at  that  range  with  a  ready  draw.  Again  and  again 
he  had  thus  hit  his  target  in  practice  and  six  times  he 
had  winged  his  man  by  such  agile  promptness. 

With  the  flash  from  the  muzzle  all  the  members  of 
the  gallery  rose  on  hands  and  knees.  They  were  as 
sure  that  there  was  to  be  a  seventh  notch  as  of  their 
identity.  There  was  no  question  in  their  minds  but 
Pete  had  played  a  smart  trick.  They  had  known  from 
the  first  that  he  would  win.  And  the  proof  of  it  was 
in  the  sudden,  uncontrollable  movement  of  the  adver- 
sary. 

Jack  whirled  half  round.  He  was  falling.  But 
even  as  he  fell  he  was  still  facing  his  adversary.  He 
plunged  forward  unsteadily  and  came  to  rest  on  his 
left  elbow.  A  trickle  of  blood  showed  on  the  chap  of 
his  left  leg,  which  had  tightened  as  his  knee  twisted 
under  him.  Leddy's  rage  had  been  so  hot  that  for 
once  his  trigger  finger  had  been  too  quick.  He  had 
aimed  too  low.  But  he  was  sure  that  he  had  done  for 
his  man  and  he  looked  triumphantly  toward  the  gallery 
gods  whose  hero  he  was.  They  had  now  risen  to  their 
feet.  In  answer  to  their  congratulations  he  waved  his 


THE  DEVIL  IS  OUT  73 

left  hand,  palm  out,  in  salutation.  His  gun-hand  had 
dropped  back  to  his  trousers  seam. 

Even  as  it  dropped,  Jack's  revolver  had  risen,  his 
own  gun-hand  steadied  in  the  palm  of  his  left  hand, 
which  had  an  elbow  in  the  sand  for  a  rest.  Victor  and 
spectators,  in  their  preoccupation  with  the  relief  and 
elation  of  a  drama  finished,  had  their  first  warning  of 
what  was  to  come  in  a  voice  that  did  not  seem  like  the 
voice  of  the  tenderfoot  as  they  had  heard  it,  but  of 
another  man.  And  Leddy  was  looking  at  a  black  hole 
in  a  rim  of  steel  which,  though  twenty  yards  away, 
seemed  hot  against  his  forehead,  while  he  turned  cold. 

"Now,  Pete  Leddy,  do  not  move  a  muscle!"  Jack 
told  him.  "Pete  Leddy,  you  did  not  play  my  way. 
I  still  have  a  shot  due,  and  I  am  going  to  kill  you!" 

Jack's  face  seemed  never  to  have  worn  a  smile.  It 
was  all  chin,  and  thin,  tightly-pressed  lips,  and  solid, 
straight  nose,  bronze  and  unyielding. 

"And  I  am  going  to  kill  you!" 

This  was  surely  the  devil  of  Ignacio's  imagery  speak- 
ing in  him — a  cold,  passionless,  gray-eyed  devil.  Though 
they  had  never  seen  him  shoot,  everybody  felt  now 
that  he  could  shoot  with  deadly  accuracy  and  that 
there  was  no  play  cowboy  in  his  present  mood.  He 
had  the  bead  of  death  on  Leddy  and  he  would  fire  with 
the  first  flicker  of  resistance.  His  call  seemed  to  have 
sunk  the  feet  of  everyone  beneath  the  sand  to  bed-rock 
and  riveted  them  there.  Lang  and  the  two  seconds 
were  as  motionless  as  statues. 

Mary  recalled  Leddy's  leer  at  her  on  the  pass,  with 
its  intent  of  something  more  horrible  than  murder. 
Savagery  rose  in  her  heart.  It  was  right  that  he  should 
be  killed.  He  deserved  his  fate.  But  no  sooner  was 


74  OVER  THE  PASS 

the  savagery  born — born,  she  felt,  of  the  very  hypnosis 
of  that  carved  face — than  she  cast  it  out  shudderingly 
in  the  realization  that  she  had  wished  the  death  of  a 
fellow  human  being!  She  looked  away  from  Jack;  and 
then  it  occurred  to  her  that  he  must  be  bleeding.  He 
was  again  a  companion  of  the  trail,  his  strength  ebbing 
away.  Her  impulse  was  retarded  by  no  fear  of  the 
gallery-  now.  It  brought  her  to  her  feet. 

"But  first  drop  your  revolver!"  she  heard  Jack  call, 
as  she  ran. 

!'  She  saw  it  fall  from  Leddy's  trembling  hand,  as  a 
dead  leaf  goes  free  of  a  breeze-shaken  limb.  All  the 
fight  was  out  of  him.  The  courage  of  six  notches  was 
not  the  courage  to  accept  in  stoicism  the  penalty  of 
foul  play.  And  that  black  rim  was  burning  his  fore- 
head. 

"Galway,  you  have  a  gun?"   Jack  asked. 
ij    "Yes,"  Galway  answered,  mechanically.    His  pres- 
ence of  mind,  which  had  been  so  sure  in  the  store, 
was  somewhat  shaken.     He  had  seen  men  killed,  but 
never  in  such  deliberate  fashion. 

"Take  it  out!" 

There  was  a  quality  in  the  command  like  frosty  mad- 
ness, which  one  instinctively  obeyed.  The  half-pros- 
trate figure  of  the  tenderfoot  seemed  to  dominate  every- 
thing— men,  earth,  and  air. 

Mary  had  a  glimpse  of  Galway  drawing  an  automatic 
pistol  from  his  pocket  when  she  dropped  at  Jack's  side. 
She  knew  that  Jack  had  not  heard  or  seen  her  approach. 
All  his  will  was  flowing  out  along  a  pistol's  sight,  even  as 
his  blood  was  flowing  out  on  the  sand  in  a  broadening 
circle  of  red. 

It  was  well  that  she  had  come.     Her  fingers  were 


THE  DEVIL  IS  OUT  75 

splashed  as  she  felt  for  the  artery,  which  she  closed  by 
leaning  her  whole  weight  on  the  thumb. 

Ignacio  had  followed  her  and  immediately  after  him 
came  Firio,  who  had  been  startled  in  his  breakfast 
preparations  by  the  sound  of  a  shot  and  had  set  out 
to  investigate  its  cause.  He  was  as  changed  as  his 
master;  a  twitching,  fierce  being,  glaring  at  her  and 
at  the  wound  and  then  prolongedly  and  watchfully  at 
Pete  Leddy. 

"Can  you  shoot  to  kill?"  Jack  asked  Galway,  in 
a  piercing  summons. 

"Yes,"  drawled  Galway. 

"Then  up  with  your  gun — quick!  There!  A  bead 
on  Ropey  Smith!" 

Galway  had  the  bead  before  Ropey  could  protest. 

"  Give  Ropey  ten  seconds  to  drop  his  gun  or  we  will 
care  for  him  at  the  same  time  as  Pete ! "  Jack  concluded. 

Ropey  did  not  wait  the  ten  seconds.  He  was  over- 
prompt  for  the  same  reasons  of  temperament  that  made 
Pete  Leddy  prefer  his  own  way  of  fighting. 

"I  take  it  that  we  can  count  on  the  neutrality  of  our 
spectators.  They  cannot  be  interested  in  the  success 
of  either  side,"  Jack  observed,  with  dry  humor,  but 
still  methodically.  "All  they  ask  is  a  spectacle." 

"Yes,  you  bet!"  came  a  voice  from  the  gallery, 
undisguisedly  eager  to  concur. 

"Now,  Pete  and  Ropey,"  Jack  began,  and  broke 
off. 

There  was  a  poignant  silence  that  waited  on  the  proc- 
esses of  his  mind.  Not  only  was  there  no  sound,  but 
to  Mary  there  seemed  no  movement  anywhere  in  the 
world,  except  the  pulse  of  the  artery  trying  to  drive  its 
flood  past  the  barrier  of  her  thumb.  Jack  kept  his 


76  OVER  THE  PASS 

bead  unremittingly  on  Pete.  It  was  Firio  who  broke 
the  silence. 

"Kill  him!  He  is  bad!  He  hates  you!"  said 
Firio. 

"Si,  si!  If  you  do  not  kill  him  now,  you  must  some 
time/'  said  Ignacio. 

Mary  felt  that  even  if  Jack  heard  them  he  would  not 
let  their  advice  influence  him.  On  the  bank  before 
she  had  hastened  to  him  a  strange  and  awful  visitor 
in  her  heart  had  wished  for  Leddy's  death.  Now  she 
wished  for  him  to  go  away  unharmed.  She  wished  it 
in  the  name  of  her  own  responsibility  for  all  that  had 
happened.  Yet  her  tongue  had  no  urging  word  to 
offer.  She  waited  in  a  supernatural  and  dreadful  curi- 
osity on  Jack's  decision.  It  was  as  if  he  were  to  answer 
one  more  question  in  explanation  of  the  mystery  of 
his  nature.  Could  he  deliberately  shoot  down  an  un- 
armed man?  Was  he  that  hard? 

"I  am  thinking  just  how  to  deal  with  you,  Pete  and 
Ropey,"  Jack  proceeded.  "As  I  understand  it,  you 
have  not  been  very  useful  citizens  of  Little  Rivers. 
You  can  live  under  one  condition — that  you  leave  town 
and  never  return  armed.  Half  a  minute  to  decide!" 

"I'll  go!"  said  Pete. 

"I'll  go!"  said  Ropey. 

"And  keep  your  words?" 

"Yes!"  they  assented. 

But  neither  moved.  The  fact  that  Jack  had  not 
yet  lowered  his  revolver  made  them  cautious.  They 
were  obviously  over-anxious  to  play  safe  to  the  last. 

"Then  go!"  called  Jack. 

Pete  and  Ropey  slouched  away,  leaving  behind 
Ropey's  gun,  which  was  unimportant  as  it  had  only 


THE  DEVIL  IS  OUT  77 

one  notch,  and  Pete's  precious  companion  of  many 
campaigns  with  its  six  notches,  lying  on  the  sand. 

"And,  gentlemen,"  Jack  called  to  the  spectators, 
"our  little  entertainment  is  over  now.  I  am  afraid 
that  you  will  be  late  for  breakfast." 

Apparently  it  came  as  a  real  inspiration  to  all  at  once 
that  they  might  be,  for  they  began  to  withdraw  with  a 
celerity  that  was  amazingly  spontaneous.  Their  heads 
disappeared  below  the  skyline  and  only  the  actors 
were  left.  Pete  and  Ropey — Bill  Lang  following — 
walked  away  along  the  bed  of  the  arroyo,  instead  of 
going  over  the  bank.  Pete  paused  when  he  was  out 
of  range.  The  old  threat  was  again  in  his  pose. 

"I'm  not  through  with  you,  yet!"  he  called. 

"Why,  I  hope  you  are!"  Jack  answered. 

He  let  his  revolver  fall  with  a  convulsion  of  weakness. 
Mary  wondered  if  he  were  going  to  faint.  She  wondered 
if  she  herself  were  not  going  to  faint,  in  a  giddy  second, 
while  the  red  spot  on  the  sand  shaped  itself  in  revolving 
grotesquery.  But  the  consciousness  that  she  must  not 
lift  her  weight  from  the  artery  was  a  centering  idea  to 
keep  her  faculties  in  some  sort  of  equilibrium. 

He  was  looking  around  at  her,  she  knew.  Now  she 
must  see  his  face  after  this  transformation  in  him  which 
had  made  her  fears  of  his  competency  silly  imaginings; 
ufter  she  had  linked  her  name  with  his  in  an  over- 
whelming village  sensation.  She  was  stricken  by  un- 
analyzable  emotions  and  by  a  horror  of  her  nearness  to 
him,  her  contact  with  his  very  blood,  and  his  power. 
She  was  conscious  of  a  glimpse  of  his  turning  profile, 
still  transfixed  with  the  cool  purpose  of  action.  Then 
they  were  gazing  full  at  each  other,  eyes  into  eyes,  di- 
rectly, questioningly.  He  was  smiling  as  he  had  on 


78  OVER  THE  PASS 

the  pass;  as  he  had  when  he  stood  with  his  arms  full 
of  mail  waiting  for  the  signal  to  deposit  his  load.  His 
devil  had  slipped  back  into  his  inner  being. 

He  spoke  first,  and  in  the  voice  that  went  with  his 
vaguest  mood;  the  voice  in  which  he  had  described  his 
escape  from  the  dinosaur  whose  scales  had  become 
wedged  in  the  defile  at  the  critical  moment. 

"You  have  a  strong  thumb  and  it  must  be  tired,  as 
well  as  all  bluggy,"  he  said,  falling  into  a  childhood 
symbol  for  taking  the  whole  affair  in  play. 

Could  he  be  the  same  man  who  had  said,  "  I  am  go- 
ing to  kill  you!"  so  relentlessly?  He  had  eased  the 
situation  with  the  ready  gift  he  had  for  easing  situa- 
tions; but,  at  the  same  time,  he  had  made  those  unan- 
alyzable  emotions  more  complex,  though  they  were 
swept  into  the  background  for  the  moment.  He  glanced 
down  at  his  leg  with  comprehending  surprise. 

"Now,  certainly,  you  are  free  of  all  responsibility," 
he  added.  "You  kept  the  strength  in  me  to  escape  the 
fate  you  feared.  Jim  Galway  will  make  a  tourniquet 
and  relieve  you." 

The  first  available  thing  for  tightening  the  tourni- 
quet was  the  barrel  of  Pete  Leddy's  gun  and  the  first 
suggestion  for  material  came  from  her.  It  was  the  sash 
of  her  gown,  which  Galway  knotted  with  his  strong, 
sunburned  fingers. 

When  she  could  lift  her  numbed  thumb  from  its  task 
and  rose  to  her  feet  she  had  a  feeling  of  relief,  as  if  she 
were  free  of  magnetic  bonds  and  uncanny  personal 
proximity.  The  incident  was  closed — surely  closed. 
She  was  breathing  a  prayer  of  thanks  when  a  re- 
mark from  Galway  to  Jack  brought  back  her  appre- 
hension. 


THE  DEVIL  IS  OUT  79 

"I  guess  you  will  have  to  postpone  catching  to-day's 
train,"  he  said. 

Certainly,  Jack  must  remain  until  his  wound  had 
healed  and  his  strength  had  returned.  And  where 
would  he  go?  He  could  not  camp  out  on  the  desert. 
As  Jasper  Ewold  had  the  most  commodious  bungalow 
it  seemed  natural  that  any  wounded  stranger  should 
be  taken  there.  The  idea  chilled  her  as  an  insupport- 
able intrusion.  Jack  hesitated  a  moment.  He  was 
evidently  considering  whether  he  could  not  still  keep 
to  his  programme. 

"Yes,  Jim,  I'm  afraid  I  shall  have  to  ask  you  for  a 
cot  for  a  few  days,"  he  said,  finally. 

Again  he  had  the  right  thought  at  the  right  moment. 
Had  he  surmised  what  was  passing  in  her  mind? 

"Seeing  that  you've  got  Pete  Leddy  out  of  town, 
I  should  say  that  you  were  fairly  entitled  to  a  whole 
bed,"  Jim  drawled.  "These  two  Indians  here  can 
make  a  hustle  to  get  some  kind  of  a  litter." 

Now  she  could  go.  That  was  her  one  crying  thought : 
She  could  go!  And  again  he  came  to  her  rescue  with 
his  smiling  considerateness. 

"You  have  missed  your  breakfast,  I'll  warrant,"  he 
said  to  her.  "Please  don't  wait.  You  were  so  brave 
and  cool  about  it  all,  and — I — "  A  faint  tide  of  color 
rose  to  his  cheeks,  which  had  been  pale  from  loss  of 
blood.  For  once  he  seemed  unable  to  find  a  word. 

Mary  denied  him  any  assistance  in  his  embarrass- 
ment. 

"Yes,"  she  answered,  almost  bluntly.  Then  she 
added  an  excuse:  "And  you  should  have  a  doctor  at 
once.  I  will  send  him." 

She  did  not  look  at  Jack  again,  but  hastened  away. 


80  OVER  THE  PASS 

When  she  was  over  the  bank  of  the  arroyo  out  of  sight 
she  put  her  fingers  to  her  temples  in  strong  pressure. 
That  pulse  made  her  think  of  another,  which  had  been 
under  her  thumb,  and  she  withdrew  her  fingers  quickly. 
"It  is  the  sun!  I  have  no  hat,"  she  said  to  herself, 
"and  I  didn't  sleep  well." 


X 

MARY  EXPLAINS 

Dr.  Patterson  was  still  asleep  when  Mary  rapped  at 
his  door.  Having  aroused  him  to  action  by  calling  out 
that  a  stranger  had  been  wounded  in  the  arroyo,  she 
did  not  pause  to  offer  any  further  details.  With  her 
eyes  level  and  dull,  she  walked  rapidly  along  the  main 
street  where  nobody  was  yet  abroad,  her  one  thought 
to  reach  her  room  uninterrupted.  As  she  approached 
the  house  she  saw  her  father  standing  on  the  porch,  his 
face  beaming  with  the  joy  of  a  serenely-lived  moment 
as  he  had  his  morning  look  at  the  Eternal  Painter's 
first  display  for  the  day.  She  had  crossed  the  bridge 
before  he  became  conscious  of  her  presence. 

"Mary!  You  are  up  first!  Out  so  early  when  you 
went  to  bed  so  late!"  he  greeted  her. 

"I  did  not  sleep  well,"  she  explained. 

"What,  Mary,  you  not  sleep  well!"  All  the  pre- 
occupation with  the  heavens  went  from  his  eyes,  which 
swept  her  from  head  to  foot.  "Mary!  Your  hand  is 
covered  with  blood!  There  is  blood  on  your  dress! 
What  does  this  mean?" 

She  looked  down  and  for  the  first  time  saw  dark  red 
spots  on  her  skirt.  The  sight  sent  a  shiver  through 
her,  which  she  mastered  before  she  spoke. 

"  Oh,  nothing — or  a  good  deal,  if  you  put  it  in  another 
way.  A  real  sensation  for  Little  Rivers!"  she  said. 

"But  you  are  not  telling!" 
81 


82  OVER  THE  PASS 

"It  is  such  a  remarkable  story,  father,  it  ought  not 
to  be  spoiled  by  giving  away  its  plot,"  she  said,  with 
assumed  lightness.  "I  don't  feel  equal  to  doing  full 
justice  to  it  until  after  I've  had  my  bath.  I  will  tell 
you  at  breakfast.  That's  a  reason  for  your  waiting 
for  me." 

And  she  hastened  past  him  into  the  house. 

"Was  it — was  it  something  to  do  with  this  Wing- 
field?"  he  called  excitedly  after  her. 

"Yes,  about  the  fellow  of  the  enormous  spurs — 
Seiior  Don't  Care,  as  Ignacio  calls  him,"  she  answered 
from  the  stair. 

Some  note  underneath  her  nonchalance  seemed  to 
disturb,  even  to  distress  him.  He  entered  the  house 
and  started  through  the  living-room  on  his  way  to  the 
library.  But  he  paused  as  if  in  answer  to  a  call  from 
one  of  the  four  photographs  on  the  wall,  Michael  An- 
gelo's  young  David,  in  the  supple  ease  of  grace.  The 
David  which  Michael  made  from  an  imperfect  piece 
of  marble!  The  David  which  sculptors  say  is  ill-pro- 
portioned! The  David  into  which,  however,  the  mas- 
ter breathed  the  thing  we  call  genius,  in  the  bloom  of 
his  own  youth  finding  its  power,  even  as  David  found 
his  against  Goliath. 

This  David  has  come  out  of  the  unknown,  over  the 
hills,  with  the  dew  of  morning  freshness  on  his  brow. 
He  is  unconscious  of  self;  of  everything  except  that  he 
is  unafraid.  If  all  other  aspirants  have  failed  in  down- 
ing the  old  champion,  why,  he  will  try. 

Now,  Jasper  Ewold  frowned  at  David  as  if  he  were 
getting  no  answer  to  a  series  of  questions. 

"I  must  make  a  change.  You  have  been  up  a  long 
time,  David,"  he  thought;  for  he  had  many  of  these 


MARY  EXPLAINS  83 

photographs  which  he  kept  in  a  special  store-room  sub- 
ject to  his  pleasure  in  hanging.  "Yes,  I  will  have  a 
Madonna — two  Madonnas,  perhaps,  and  a  Velasquez 
and  a  Rembrandt  next  time." 

In  the  library  he  set  to  reading  Professor  Giucciamini; 
but  he  found  himself  disagreeing  with  the  professor. 

"I  want  your  facts  which  you  have  dug  out  of  the 
archives,"  he  said,  speaking  to  the  book  as  if  it  were 
alive.  "I  don't  want  your  opinions.  Confound  it!" 
he  threw  Giucciamini  on  the  table.  "I'll  make  my 
own  opinions!  Nothing  else  to  do  out  here  on  the 
desert.  Time  enough  to  change  them  as  often  as  I 
want,  too." 

He  went  into  the  garden — the  garden  which,  next 
to  Mary,  was  the  most  intimate  thing  in  his  affections. 
Usually,  every  new  leaf  that  had  burst  forth  over  night 
set  itself  in  the  gelatine  of  his  mind  like  so  many  letter- 
press changes  on  a  printed  page  to  a  proof-reader.  This 
time,  however,  a  new  palm  leaf,  a  new  spray  of  bougain- 
villea  blossoms,  a  bud  on  the  latest  rose  setting  which 
he  had  from  Los  Angeles,  said  "Good  morning,"  with- 
out any  response  from  him. 

He  paced  back  and  forth,  his  hands  clasped  behind 
him,  his  head  bowed  moodily,  and  his  shoulders  drawn 
together  in  a  way  that  made  him  seem  older  and  more 
portly.  With  each  turn  he  looked  sharply,  impa- 
tiently, toward  the  door  of  the  house. 

Never  had  Mary  so  felt  the  charm  of  her  room  as 
on  this  morning;  never  had  it  seemed  so  set  apart 
from  the  world  and  so  personal.  It  was  the  breadth 
of  the  ell  and  the  size  of  her  father's  library  and  bed- 
room combined.  The  windows  could  hardly  be  called 
windows  in  a  Northern  sense,  for  there  was  no  glass. 


84  OVER  THE  PASS 

It  was  unnecessary  to  seal  up  the  source  of  light  and 
air  in  a  dry  climate,  where  a  blanket  at  night  supplied 
all  the  extra  warmth  one's  body  ever  required.  The 
blinds  swung  inward  and  the  shades  softened  the  light 
and  added  to  the  privacy  which  the  screen  of  the  grow- 
ing young  trees  and  creeping  vines  were  fast  supplying. 
Here  she  could  be  more  utterly  alone  than  on  the  sum- 
mit of  the  pass  itself.  She  paused  in  the  doorway,  sur- 
veying familiar  objects  in  the  enjoyed  triumph  of 
complete  seclusion. 

While  she  waited  for  the  water  to  run  into  the  bowl, 
she  looked  fixedly  at  the  stains  of  a  fluid  which  had 
been  so  warm  in  its  touch.  It  was  only  blood,  she 
told  herself.  It  would  wash  off,  and  she  held  her  hands 
in  the  water  and  saw  the  spread  of  the  dye  through  the 
bowl  in  a  moment  of  preoccupation.  Then  she  scrubbed 
as  vigorously  as  if  she  were  bent  on  removing  the  skin 
itself.  After  she  had  held  up  her  dripping  fingers  in 
satisfied  inspection,  the  spots  on  her  gown  caught  her 
eye.  For  a  moment  they,  too,  held  her  staring  atten- 
tion; then  she  slipped  out  of  the  gown  precipitately. 

With  this,  her  determined  haste  was  at  an  end.  She 
was  about  to  enjoy  the  feminine  luxury  of  time.  The 
combing  of  her  hair  became  a  delightful  and  leisurely 
function  in  the  silky  feel  of  the  strands  in  her  fingers 
and  the  refreshing  pull  at  the  roots.  The  flow  of  the 
bath  water  made  the  music  of  pleasurable  anticipation, 
and  immersion  set  the  very  spirit  of  physical  life  leap- 
ing and  tingling  in  her  veins.  And  all  the  while  she 
was  thinking  of  how  to  fashion  a  narrative. 

When  she  started  down-stairs  she  was  not  only  re- 
freshed but  remade.  She  was  going  to  breakfast  at 
the  usual  hour,  after  the  usual  processes  of  ushering 


MARY  EXPLAINS  85 

herself  from  the  night's  rest  into  the  day's  activities. 
There  had  been  no  stealthy  trip  out  to  the  arroyo;  no 
duel;  no  wound;  no  Seiior  Don't  Care.  She  had  only 
a  story  which  involved  all  these  elements,  a  most  pre- 
posterous story,  to  tell. 

"Now  you  shall  hear  all  about  it!"  she  called  to  her 
father  as  soon  as  she  saw  him;  "the  strangest,  most 
absurd,  most  amusing  affair" — she  piled  up  the  ad- 
jectives— "that  has  ever  occurred  in  Little  Rivers!" 

She  began  at  once,  even  before  she  poured  his  coffee, 
her  voice  a  trifle  high-pitched  with  her  simulation  of 
humor.  And  she  was  exactly  veracious,  avoiding  de- 
tails, yet  missing  nothing  that  gave  the  facts  a  pleasant 
trail.  She  told  of  the  meeting  with  Leddy  on  the  pass 
and  of  the  arrival  of  the  gorgeous  traveller;  of  Jack's 
whistle;  of  Pete's  challenge. 

Jasper  Ewold  listened  with  stoical  attentiveness. 
He  did  not  laugh,  even  when  Jack's  vagaries  were 
mentioned. 

"Why  didn't  you  tell  me  last  night?"  was  his  first 
question. 

"  To  be  honest,  I  was  afraid  that  it  would  worry  you. 
I  was  afraid  that  you  would  not  permit  me  to  go  to  the 
pass  alone  again.  But  you  will?"  She  slipped  her 
hand  across  the  table  and  laid  her  fingers  appealingly 
on  the  broad  back  of  his  heavily  tanned  hand,  from 
which  the  veins  rose  in  bronze  welts.  "And  he  was 
nice  about  it  in  his  ridiculous,  big-spurs  fashion.  He 
said  that  it  was  all  due  to  the  whistle." 

"  Go  on !  Go  on !  There  must  be  more ! "  her  father 
insisted  impatiently. 

She  gave  him  the  pantomime  of  the  store,  not  as  a 
bit  of  tragedy — she  was  careful  about  that — but  as 


86  OVER  THE  PASS 

something  witnessed  by  an  impersonal  spectator  and 
narrator  of  stories. 

"He  walked  right  toward  a  muzzle,  this  Wingfield?" 
Jasper  asked,  his  brows  contracting. 

"Why,  yes.  I  told  you  at  the  start  it  was  all  most 
preposterous,"  she  answered. 

"And  he  was  not  afraid  of  death — this  Wingfield!" 
Jasper  repeated. 

He  was  looking  away  from  her.  The  contraction  of 
his  brows  had  become  a  scowl  of  mystification. 

"Why  do  you  always  speak  of  him  as  'this  Wing- 
field/  "  she  demanded,  "as  if  the  town  were  full  of 
Wingfields  and  he  was  a  particular  one?" 

He  looked  around  quickly,  his  features  working  in 
a  kind  of  confusion.  Then  he  smiled. 

"I  was  thinking  of  the  whistle,"  he  explained. 
"Well,  we'll  call  him  this  Sir  Chaps,  this  Sefior  Don't 
Care,  or  whatever  you  please.  As  for  his  walking  into 
the  gun,  there  is  nothing  remarkable  in  that.  You 
draw  on  a  man.  You  expect  him  to  throw  up  his  hands 
or  reach  for  his  gun.  He  does  nothing  but  smile  right 
along  the  level  of  the  sight  into  your  eyes.  It  was 
disturbing  to  Pete's  sense  of  etiquette  on  such  occa- 
sions. It  threw  him  off.  There  are  similar  instances 
in  history.  A  soldier  once  put  a  musket  at  Bonaparte's 
head.  Some  of  Cesar's  legionaries  once  pressed  th<  ir 
swords  at  his  breast.  Such  old  hands  in  human  psy- 
chology had  the  presence  of  mind  to  smile.  And  the 
history  of  the  West  is  full  of  examples  which  have  not 
been  recorded.  Go  on,  Mary!" 

"Ignacio  says  he  has  a  devil  in  him,"  she  added. 

"That  little  Indian  has  a  lot  of  primitive  race  wis- 
dom. Probably  he  is  right,"  her  father  said  soberly. 


MARY  EXPLAINS  87 

"It  explains  what  followed,"  she  proceeded. 

She  was  emphatic  about  the  reason  for  her  part.  She 
went  out  to  the  arroyo  on  behalf  of  her  responsibility 
for  a  human  life. 

"But  why  did  you  not  rouse  me?  Why  did  you  go 
alone?"  he  asked. 

"I  didn't  think — there  wasn't  time — I  was  upset 
and  hurried." 

She  proceeded  in  a  forced  monotone  which  seemed 
to  allow  her  hardly  a  single  full  breath. 

"And  I  am  going  to  kill  you!"  she  repeated,  shud- 
dering, at  the  close  of  the  narrative. 

"When  he  said  that  did  his  face  change  completely? 
Did  it  seem  like  the  face  of  another  man?  Yes,  did 
it  seem  as  if  there  were  one  face  that  could  charm  and 
another  that  could  kill?"  Jasper's  words  came  slowly 
and  with  a  drawn  exactness.  They  formed  the  in- 
quiry of  one  who  expected  corroboration  of  an  impres- 
sion. 

"Yes." 

"You  felt  it— you  felt  it  very  definitely,  Mary?" 

"Yes." 

She  was  living  over  the  moment  of  Jack's  transfor- 
mation from  silk  to  steel.  The  scene  in  the  arroyo  be- 
came burning  clear.  Under  the  strain  of  the  sup- 
pression of  her  own  excitement,  concentrated  in  her 
purpose  to  make  all  the  realism  of  the  duel  an  ab- 
surdity, she  did  not  watch  keenly  for  the  signs  of  ex- 
pression by  which  she  usually  knew  what  was  passing 
in  her  father's  mind.  But  she  was  not  too  preoccu- 
pied to  see  that  he  was  relieved  over  her  assent  that 
there  was  a  devil  in  Jack  Wingfield,  which  struck  her 
as  a  puzzle  in  keeping  with  all  that  morning's  experi- 


88  OVER  THE  PASS 

eace.  It  added  to  the  inward  demoralization  which 
had  suddenly  dammed  her  power  of  speech. 

"Ignacio  saw  it,  too,  so  I  was  interested,"  Jasper 
added  quickly,  in  a  more  natural  tone,  settling  back 
into  his  chair.  His  agitation  had  passed. 

So  that  was  it.  Her  father's  dominant,  fine  old 
egoism  was  rejoicing  in  another  proof  of  his  excellence 
as  a  judge  of  character. 

"Finis!    The  story  is  told !"  he  continued  softly. 

All  told!  And  it  had  been  a  success.  Mary  caught 
her  breath  in  a  gay,  high-pitched  exclamation  of 
realization  that  she  had  not  to  go  on  with  explana- 
tions. 

"  Our  singular  cavalier  is  safe ! "  she  said.  "  My  debt 
is  paid.  I  need  not  worry  any  further  lest  someone 
who  did  me  a  favor  should  suffer  for  it!" 

"True!  true!" 

Jasper's  outburst  of  laughter  when  he  had  paused  in 
turning  down  the  wick  of  the  lamp  the  previous  even- 
ing had  been  as  a  forced  blast  from  the  brasses.  Any- 
one with  strong  lungs  may  laugh  majestically;  but  it 
takes  depth  of  feeling  and  years  rich  with  experience 
to  express  the  gratification  that  now  possessed  him. 
He  stretched  his  hands  across  the  table  to  her  and 
the  laugh  that  came  then  came  as  a  cataract  of  spon- 
taneity. 

"Exactly,  Mary!  The  duel  provided  the  way  to 
pay  a  debt,"  he  said.  "Why,  it  is  you  who  have  done 
our  Big  Spurs  a  favor!  He  has  a  wound  to  show  to  his 
friends  in  the  East!  I  am  proud  that  you  could  take 
it  all  so  coolly  and  reasonably." 

She  improved  her  opportunity  while  he  held  her 
hands. 


MARY  EXPLAINS  89 

"I  will  go  armed  next  time,  and  I  do  know  how 
to  shoot,  so  you  won't  worry" — she  put  it  that  way, 
rather  than  openly  ask  his  consent — "if  I  ride  out  to 
the  pass?" 

"Mary,  I  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  you 
know  how  to  take  care  of  yourself,"  he  answered. 

And  that  very  afternoon  she  rode  out  to  Galeria, 
starting  a  little  earlier  than  usual,  returning  a  little 
later  than  usual,  in  jubilant  mood. 

"Everything  is  the  same!"  she  had  repeated  a  dozen 
times  on  the  road.  "Everything  is  the  same!"  she 
told  herself  before  she  fell  asleep;  and  her  sleep  was 
long  and  sweet,  in  nature's  gratitude  for  rest  after  a 
storm. 

The  sunlight  breaking  through  the  interstices  of  the 
foliage  of  a  poplar,  sensitive  to  a  slight  breeze,  came 
between  the  lattices  in  trembling  patchwork  on  the 
bed,  flickering  over  her  face  and  losing  itself  in  the 
strands  of  her  hair. 

"Everything  is  the  same!"  she  said,  when  her  facul- 
ties were  cleared  of  drowsiness. 

For  the  second  time  she  gave  intimate,  precious 
thanks  for  a  simple  thing  that  had  never  occurred  to 
her  as  a  blessing  before:  for  the  seclusion  and  silence 
of  her  room,  free  from  all  invasion  except  of  her  own 
thoughts.  The  quicker  flow  of  blood  that  came  with 
awaking,  the  expanding  thrill  of  physical  strength  and 
buoyancy  of  life  renewed,  brought  with  it  the  moral 
courage  which  morning  often  brings  to  flout  the  com- 
promises of  the  confusion  of  the  evening's  weariness. 
The  inspiriting,  cool  air  of  night  electrified  by  the  sun 
cleared  her  vision.  She  saw  all  the  pictures  on  the 
slate  of  yesterday  and  their  message  plainly,  as  some- 


90  OVER  THE  PASS 

thing  that  could  not  be  erased  by  any  Buddhistic  ritual 
of  reiterated  phrase. 

"No,  everything  is  not  the  same,  not  even  the  ride- 
not  yet!"  she  admitted.  "But  time  will  make  it  so — 
time  and  a  sense  of  humor,  which  I  hope  I  have." 


XI 

SENOR  DON'T  CARE  RECEIVES 

Jack  lounged  in  an  armchair  in  the  Galway  sitting- 
room  with  his  bandaged  leg  bolstered  on  a  stool  after 
Dr.  Patterson  had  fished  a  bit  of  lead  out  of  the  wound. 
Tribute  overflowed  from  the  table  to  the  chairs  and 
from  the  chairs  to  the  floor;  pineapples,  their  knobby 
jackets  all  yellow  from  ripening  in  the  field,  with  the  full 
succulency  of  root-fed  and  sun-drawn  flavor;  mon- 
strous navel  oranges,  leaden  with  the  weight  of  juice, 
richer  than  cloth  of  gold  and  velvet  soft;  and  every 
fruit  of  the  fertile  soil  and  benignant  climate;  and 
jellies,  pies,  and  custards.  But  these  were  only  the 
edibles.  There  were  flowers  in  equal  abundance.  They 
banked  the  windows. 

"It's  Jasper  Ewold's  idea  to  bring  gifts  when  you 
call,"  explained  Jim  Galway.  "Jasper  is  always  sow- 
ing ideas  and  lots  of  them  have  sprung  up  and  flour- 
ished." 

Jack  had  not  been  in  Little  Rivers  twenty-four  hours, 
and  he  had  played  a  part  in  its  criminal  annals  and  be- 
come subject  to  all  the  embarrassment  of  favors  of  a 
royal  bride  or  a  prima  donna  who  is  about  to  sail. 
In  a  bower,  amazed,  he  was  meeting  the  world  of  Lit- 
tle Rivers  and  its  wife.  Men  of  all  ages;  men  with 
foreign  accent;  men  born  and  bred  as  farmers;  men 
to  whom  the  effect  of  indoor  occupation  clung;  men 
still  weak,  but  with  red  corpuscles  singing  a  song  of 
01 


92  OVER  THE  PASS 

returning  health  in  their  arteries — strapping,  vigor- 
ous men,  all  with  hands  hardened  by  manual  labor  and 
in  their  eyes  the  far  distances  of  the  desert,  in  contrast 
to  the  sparkle  of  oasis  intimacy. 

Women  with  the  accent  of  college  classrooms;  women 
who  made  plural  nouns  the  running  mates  of  singular 
verbs;  women  who  were  novices  in  housework;  women 
drilled  in  drudgery  from  childhood — all  expanding,  all 
dwelling  in  a  democracy  that  had  begun  its  life  afresh 
in  a  new  land,  and  all  with  the  wonder  of  gardens  where 
there  had  been  only  sagebrush  in  their  beings. 

There  was  something  at  odds  with  Jack's  experi- 
ence of  desert  towns  in  the  picture  of  a  bronzed 
rancher,  his  arms  loaded  with  roses,  saying,  in  boyish 
diffidence: 

"Mister,  you  fit  him  fair  and  you  sure  fixed  him  good. 
Just  a  few  roses — they're  so  thick  over  to  our  place 
that  they're  getting  a  pest.  Thought  mebbe  they'd 
be  nice  for  you  to  look  at  while  you  was  tied  up  to  a 
chair  nursing  Pete's  soovenir!" 

One  visitor  whose  bulk  filled  the  doorway,  the  ex- 
pansion of  his  smile  spreading  over  a  bounteous  ro- 
tundity of  cheek,  impressed  himself  as  a  personality 
who  had  the  distinction  in  avoirdupois  that  Jim  Galway 
had  in  leanness.  In  his  hand  he  had  five  or  six  peonies 
as  large  as  saucers. 

"Every  complete  community  has  a  fat  man,  seh!" 
he  announced,  with  a  certain  ample  bashfulness  in 
keeping  with  his  general  amplitude  and  a  musical 
Southern  accent. 

"If  it  wants  to  feel  perfectly  comfortable  it  has!" 
said  Jack,  by  way  of  welcome. 

"  Well,  I'm  the  fat  man  of  Little  Rivers,  name  being 


SENOR  DON'T  CARE  RECEIVES         93 

Bob  Worther!"  said  he,  grinning  as  he  came  across  the 
room  with  an  amazingly  quick,  easy  step. 

"No  rivals?"  inquired  Jack. 

"No,  seh!  I  staked  out  the  first  claim  and  I've  an 
eye  out  for  any  new-comers  over  the  two  hundred  mark. 
I  warn  them  off!  Jasper  Ewold  is  up  to  two  hundred, 
but  he  doesn't  count.  Why,  you  ought  to  have  seen 
me,  seh,  before  I  came  to  this  valley  1" 

"A  living  skeleton?" 

"No,  seh!  Back  in  Alabama  I  had  reached  a  point 
where  I  broke  so  many  chairs  and  was  getting  so  ner- 
vous from  sudden  falls  in  the  midst  of  conversation 
when  I  made  a  lively  gesture  that  I  didn't  dare  sit 
down  away  from  home  except  at  church,  where  they 
had  pews.  I  weighed  three  hundred  and  fifty!" 

"And  now?" 

"I  acknowledge  two  hundred  and  forty,  including 
my  legs,  which  are  very  powerful,  having  worked  off 
that  extra  hundred.  I've  got  the  boss  job  for  making 
a  fat  man  spider-waisted — inspector  of  ditches  and 
dams.  Any  other  man  would  have  to  use  a  horse,  but 
I  hoof  it,  and  that's  economy  all  around.  And  being 
big  I  grow  big  things.  Violets  wouldn't  be  much  more 
in  my  line  than  drawnwork.  I've  got  this  whole  town 
beat  on  peonies  and  pumpkins.  Being  as  it's  a  fat 
man's  pleasure  to  cheer  people  up,  I  dropped  in  to 
bring  you  a  few  peonies  and  to  say  that,  considering 
the  few  well-selected  words  you  spoke  to  Pete  Leddy 
on  this  town's  behalf,  I'm  prepared  to  vote  for  you  for 
anything  from  coroner  to  president,  seh!" 

Later,  after  Bob  had  gone,  a  small  girl  brought  a 
spray  of  gladiolus,  their  slender  stems  down  to  her  toe- 
tips  and  the  opening  blossoms  half  hiding  her  face. 


94  OVER  THE  PASS 

Jack  insisted  on  having  them  laid  across  his  knee. 
She  was  not  a  fairy  out  of  a  play,  as  he  knew  by  her 
conversation. 

"Mister,  did  you  yell  when  you  was  hit?"  she  asked. 

Jack  considered  thoughtfully.  It  would  not  do  to 
be  vagarious  under  such  a  shrewd  examination;  he 
must  be  exact. 

"No,  I  don't  think  I  did.     I  was  too  busy." 

"I'll  bet  you  wanted  to,  if  you  hadn't  been  so  busy. 
Did  it  hurt  much?" 

"Not  so  very  much." 

"Maybe  that  was  why  you  didn't  yell.  Mother  says 
that  all  you  can  see  is  a  little  black  spot — except  you 
can't  see  it  for  the  bandages.  Is  that  the  way  yours 
is?" 

" I  believe  so.  In  fact,  I'll  tell  you  a  secret:  That's 
the  fashion  in  wounds." 

"Mother  will  be  glad  to  know  she's  right.  She  sets 
a  lot  by  her  opinion,  does  mother.  Say,  do  you  like 
plums?" 

Jack  already  had  a  peck  of  plums,  but  another  peck 
would  not  add  much  to  the  redundancy  as  far  as  he 
was  concerned. 

"I'll  bring  you  some.  We've  got  the  biggest  plums 
in  Little  Rivers — oh,  so  big!  Bigger'n  Mr.  Ewold's! 
I'll  bring  some  right  away."  She  paused,  however, 
in  the  doorway.  "  Don't  you  tell  anybody  I  said  they 
were  bigger'n  Mr.  Ewold's,"  she  went  on.  "It  might 
hurt  his  feelings.  He's  what  they  call  the  o-rig-i-nal 
set-tier,  and  we  always  agree  that  he  grows  the  biggest 
of  everything,  because — why,  because  he's  got  such  a 
big  laugh  and  such  a  big  smile.  Mother  says  sour- 
faced  people  oughtn't  to  have  a  face  any  bigger'n  a 


SENOR  DON'T  CARE  RECEIVES        95 

crab  apple;  but  Mr.  Ewold's  face  couldn't  be  too  big 
if  it  was  as  big  as  all  outdoors!  Good-by.  I  reckon 
you  won't  be  s'prised  to  hear  that  I'm  the  dreadful 
talker  of  our  family." 

"Wait!"  Jack  called.  "You  haven't  told  me  your 
name." 

"Belvedere  Smith.  Father  says  it  ain't  a  name  for 
living  things.  But  mother  is  dreadfully  set  in  her 
ideas  of  names,  and  she  doesn't  like  it  because  people 
call  me  Belvy;  but  they  just  naturally  will." 

"  Belvedere,  did  you  ever  hear  of  the  three  little  blue 
mice" — Jack  was  leaning  toward  her  with  an  air  of 
fascinating  mystery — "that  thought  they  could  hide 
in  the  white  clover  from  the  white  cat  that  had  two 
black  stripes  on  her  back?" 

There  was  a  pellmell  dash  across  the  room  and  her 
face,  with  wide-open  eyes  dancing  in  curiosity,  was 
pressed  close  to  his: 

"Why  did  the  cat  have  two  black  stripes?  Why? 
why?" 

"Just  what  I  was  going  to  tell,"  said  the  pacifier  of 
desperadoes. 

"They  were  off  on  a  tremendous  adventure,  with  ant- 
hills for  mountains  and  clover-stems  for  the  tree-trunks 
of  forests  in  the  path.  Tragedy  seemed  due  for  the 
mice,  when  a  bee  dropped  off  a  thistle  blossom  for  a 
remarkable  reason — none  other  than  that  a  humming- 
bird cuffed  him  in  the  ear  with  his  wing — and  the  bee, 
looking  for  revenge  with  his  stinger  on  the  first  vul- 
nerable spot,  stung  the  cat  right  in  the  Achilles  tendon 
of  his  paw,  just  as  that  paw  was  about  to  descend  with 
murderous  purpose.  The  cat  ran  away  crying,  with  both 
black  stripes  ridges  of  fur  sticking  up  straight,  while 


96  OVER  THE  PASS 

the  rest  of  the  fur  lay  nice  and  smooth;  and  the  mice 
giggled  so  that  their  ears  nearly  wiggled  off  their  heads. 
So  all  ended  happily." 

"He  does  beat  all!"  thought  Mrs.  Galway,  who  had 
overheard  part  of  the  nonsense  from  the  doorway. 
"Wouldn't  it  make  Pete  Leddy  mad  if  he  could  hear 
the  man  who  took  his  gun  away  getting  off  fairy  stuff 
like  that!" 

Mrs.  Galway  had  brought  in  a  cake  of  her  own  bak- 
ing. She  was  slightly  jealous  of  the  neighbors'  pastry 
as  entering  into  her  own  particular  field  of  excel- 
lence. Jack  saw  that  the  supply  of  cake  in  the  Gal- 
way pantry  must  be  as  limitless  as  the  pigments  on 
the  Eternal  Painter's  palette. 

"The  doctor  said  that  I  was  to  have  a  light  diet," 
he  expostulated;  "and  I  am  stuffed  to  the  brim." 

"I'll  make  you  some  floating  island,"  said  Mrs. 
Galway,  refusing  to  strike  her  colors. 

"That  isn't  filling  and  passes  the  time,"  Jack  ad- 
mitted. 

"Jim  says  if  you  had  to  Fletcherize  on  floating  island 
you  would  starve  to  death  and  your  teeth  would  get 
so  used  to  missing  a  step  on  the  stairs  that  they  would 
never  be  able  to  deal  with  real  victuals  at  all." 

"Mrs.  Galway,"  Jack  observed  sagely,  dropping  his 
head  on  the  back  of  the  chair,  "I  see  that  it  has  oc- 
curred to  you  and  Jim  that  it  is  an  excellent  world  and 
full  of  excellent  nonsense.  I  am  ready  to  eat  both 
fluffy  isles  and  the  yellow  sea  in  which  they  float.  I 
am  ready  to  keep  on  getting  hungry  with  my  efforts, 
even  though  you  make  it  continents  and  oceans!" 

From  his  window  he  had  a  view,  over  the  dark, 
polished  green  of  Jim's  orange  trees,  of  the  range, 


SENOR  DON'T  CARE  RECEIVES        97 

brown  and  gray  and  bare,  holding  steady  shadows  of 
its  own  and  host  to  the  shadows  of  journeying  clouds, 
with  the  pass  set  in  the  centre  as  a  cleft  in  a  for- 
bidding barrier.  In  the  yard  Wrath  of  God,  Jag  Ear, 
and  P.  D.  were  tethered.  Deep  content  illumined  the 
faces  of  P.  D.  and  Jag  Ear;  but  Wrath  of  God  was 
as  sorrowful  as  ever.  A  cheerful  Wrath  of  God  would 
have  excited  fears  for  his  health. 

"Yet,  maybe  he  is  enjoying  his  rest  more  than  the 
others,"  Jack  told  Firio,  who  kept  appearing  at  the 
window  on  some  excuse  or  other.  "Perhaps  he  takes 
his  happiness  internally.  Perhaps  the  external  signs 
are  only  the  last  stand  of  a  lugubriousness  driven  out 
by  overwhelming  forces  of  internal  joy." 

"Si,  si!"  said  Firio. 

"Firio,  you  are  eminently  a  conversationalist,"  said 
Jack.  "You  agree  with  any  foolishness  as  if  it  were 
a  new  theory  of  ethics.  You  are  an  ideal  companion. 
I  never  have  to  listen  to  you  in  order  that  I  may  in 
turn  have  my  say." 

"Si,"  said  Firio.  He  leaned  on  the  windowsill,  his 
black  eyes  shining  with  ingenuous  and  flattering  ap- 
peal: "I  will  broil  you  a  quail  on  a  spit,"  he  whis- 
pered. "It's  better  than  stove  cooking." 

"Don't  talk  of  that!"  Jack  exclaimed,  almost  sharp- 
ly. The  suggestion  brought  a  swift  -change  to  sadness 
over  his  face  and  drew  a  veil  of  vagueness  over  his 
eyes.  "No,  Firio,  and  I'll  tell  you  why:  .the  odor  of 
a  quail  broiled  on  a  spit  belongs  at  the  end  of  a  day's 
journey,  when  you  camp  in  sight  of  no  habitation. 
You  should  sit  on  a  dusty  blanket-roll;  you  should 
eat  by  the  light  of  the  embers  or  a  guttering  candle. 
No,  Firio,  we'll  wait  till  some  other  day.  And  it's 


98  OVER  THE  PASS 

not  exactly  courtesy  to  our  hostess  to  bring  in  prov- 
ender from  the  outside." 

The  trail  had  apparently  taught  Firio  all  the  moods 
of  his  master.  He  knew  when  it  was  unwise  to  persist. 

''Si!"  he  whispered,  and  withdrew. 

Jack  looked  at  Galeria  and  then  back  quickly,  as  if 
resisting  its  call.  He  smiled  half  wryly  and  readjusted 
his  position  in  the  chair.  Over  the  hedge  he  could 
see  the  heads  and  shoulders  of  passers-by.  Jim  Gal- 
way  had  come  into  the  room,  when  Jasper  Ewold's  broad 
back  and  great  head  hove  in  sight  with  something  of 
the  steady  majesty  of  progress  of  a  full-rigged  ship. 

"The  Doge!"   Jack  exclaimed,  brightening. 

Jim  was  taken  unawares.  Was  it  the  name  of  a 
new  kind  of  semi-tropical  fruit  not  yet  introduced  into 
Arizona? 

"Not  the  Doge  of  Venice — hardly,  when  Mr.  Ewold's 
love  runs  to  Florence!  The  Doge  of  Little  Rivers!" 

"Why,  the  Doge — of  course!"  Jim  was  "on"  now 
and  grinning.  "I  didn't  think  of  my  history  at  first. 
That's  a  good  one  for  Jasper  Ewold!" 

"O  Doge  of  Little  Rivers,  I  expected  you  in  a  gon- 
dola of  state!"  said  Jack,  with  a  playfully  grandil- 
oquent gesture,  as  Jasper's  abundance  filled  the  door- 
way. "But  it  is  all  the  more  compliment  to  me  that 
you  should  walk." 

"Doge,  eh?"  Jasper  tasted  the  word.  "Pooh!"  he 
said.  "Persiflage!  persiflage!  I  saw  at  once  yester- 
day that  you  had  a  weakness  for  it." 

"And  Miss  Ewold?  How  is  she?"  Jack  asked. 
Remembering  the  promise  that  Mary  had  exacted 
from  him.  he  took  care  not  to  refer  to  her  part  in  the 
duel. 


SENOR  DON'T  CARE   RECEIVES        99 

His  question  fell  aptly  for  what  Jasper  had  to  say. 
Being  a  man  used  to  keeping  the  gate  ever  open  to  the 
full  flood  of  spontaneity,  he  became  stilted  in  the  repe- 
tition of  anything  he  had  thought  out  and  rehearsed. 
He  was  overcheerful,  without  the  mellowness  of  tone 
which  gave  his  cheer  its  charm  on  the  previous  even- 
ing. 

"She's  not  a  bit  the  worse.  .  Why,  she  went  for  a 
ride  out  to  the  pass  this  afternoon  as  usual !  I've  had 
the  whole  story,  from  the  pass  till  the  minute  that  Jim 
put  the  tourniquet  on  your  leg.  She  recognizes  the 
great  kindness  you  did  her." 

"Not  a  kindness — an  inevitable  interruption  by  any 
passer-by,"  Jack  put  in. 

"Naturally  she  felt  that  it  was  a  kindness,  a  service, 
and  when  she  knew  you  were  in  danger  she  acted 
promptly  for  herself,  with  a  desert  girl's  self-reliance. 
When  it  was  all  over  she  saw  the  whole  thing  in  its 
proper  perspective,  as  an  unpleasant,  preposterous  piece 
of  barbarism  which  had  turned  out  fortunately." 

"Oh,  I  am  glad  of  that!"  Jack  exclaimed,  in  relief 
that  spoke  rejoicing  in  every  fibre.  "I  had  worried. 
I  had  feared  lest  I  had  insisted  too  much  on  going  on. 
But  I  had  to.  And  I  know  that  it  was  a  scene  that 
only  men  ought  to  witness — so  horrible  I  feared  it 
might  leave  a  disagreeable  impression." 

"Ah,  Mary  has  courage  and  humor.  She  sees  the 
ridiculous.  She  laughs  at  it  all,  now!" 

"Laughs?"  asked  Jack.  "Yes,  it  was  laughable;" 
and  he  broke  into  laughter,  in  which  Jasper  joined 
thunderously. 

Jasper  kept  on  laughing  after  Jack  stopped,  and  in 
genuine  relief  to  find  that  the  affair  was  to  be  as  unin- 


100  OVER  THE  PASS 

fluencing  a  chapter  in  the  easy  traveller's  life  as  in 
Mary's. 

"Our  regret  is  that  we  may  have  delayed  you,  sir," 
Jasper  proceeded.  "You  may  have  had  to  postpone 
an  important  engagement.  I  understand  that  you 
had  planned  to  take  the  train  this  morning." 

"When  one  has  been  in  the  desert  for  a  long  time," 
Jack  answered,  "  a  few  days  more  or  less  hardly  matter 
in  the  time  of  his  departure.  In  a  week  Dr.  Patter- 
son says  that  I  may  go.  Meanwhile,  I  shall  have  the 
pleasure  of  getting  acquainted  with  Little  Rivers, 
which,  otherwise,  I  should  have  missed." 

"I  am  glad!"  Jasper  Ewold  exclaimed  with  dra- 
matic quickness.  "  Glad  that  your  wound  is  so  slight 
— glad  that  you  need  not  be  shut  up  long  when  you  are 
due  elsewhere." 

What  books  should  he  bring  to  the  invalid  to  while 
away  the  time?  "The  Three  Musketeers"  or  "Cy- 
rano"? Jack  seemed  to  know  his  "Cyrano"  so  well 
that  a  copy  could  be  only  a  prompt.  He  settled  deeper 
in  his  chair  and,  more  to  the  sky  than  to  Jasper  Ewold, 
repeated  Cyrano's  address  to  his  cadets,  set  to  a  tune 
of  his  own.  His  body  might  be  in  the  chair,  with  a 
bandaged  leg,  but  clearly  his  mind  was  away  on  the  trail. 

"Yes,  let  me  see,"  he  said,  coming  back  to  earth. 
"I  should  like  the  'Road  to  Rome,'  something  of 
Charles  Lamb,  Aldrich's  'Story  of  a  Bad  Boy,'  Heine 
— but  no!  What  am  I  saying?  Bring  me  any  solid 
book  on  economics.  I  ought  to  be  reading  economics. 
Economics  and  Charles  Lamb,  that  will  do.  Do  you 
think  they  could  travel  together?" 

"All  printed  things  can,  if  you  choose.  I'll  include 
Lamb." 


SENOR  DON'T  CARE  RECEIVES       101 

"And  any  Daudet  lying  loose,"  Jack  added. 

"And  Omar?" 

"I  carry  Omar  in  my  head,  thank  you,  O  Doge!" 

"  Sir  Chaps  of  the  enormous  spurs,  you  have  a  broad 
taste  for  one  who  rides  over  the  pass  of  Galeria  after 
five  years  in  Arizona,"  said  the  Doge  as  he  rose.  He 
was  covertly  surveying  that  soft,  winning,  dreamy 
profile  which  had  turned  so  hard  when  the  devil  that 
was  within  came  to  the  surface. 

"I  was  fed  on  books  and  galleries  in  my  boyhood," 
Jack  said;  but  with  a  reticence  that  indicated  that 
this  was  all  he  cared  to  tell  about  his  past. 


XII 

MARY  BRINGS  TRIBUTE 

Every  resident  except  the  cronies  of  Pete  Leddy  con- 
sidered it  a  duty,  once  a  day  at  least,  to  look  over  the 
Galway  hedge  and  ask  how  Sefior  Don't  Care  was  doing. 
That  is,  everyone  with  a  single  exception,  which  was 
Mary.  Jack  had  never  seen  her  even  pass  the  house. 
It  was  as  if  his  very  existence  had  dropped  out  of  her 
ken.  The  town  remarked  the  anomaly. 

"You  have  not  been  in  lately,"  Mrs.  Galway  re- 
minded her. 

"My  flowers  have  required  a  lot  of  attention;  also, 
I  have  been  riding  out  to  the  pass  a  good  deal,"  she 
answered,  and  changed  the  subject  to  geraniums,  for 
the  very  good  reason  that  she  had  just  been  weeding 
her  geranium  bed. 

Mrs.  Galway  looked  at  her  strangely  and  Mary 
caught  the  glance.  She  guessed  what  Mrs.  Galway 
was  thinking:  that  she  had  been  a  little  inconsiderate 
of  a  man  who  had  been  wounded  in  her  service. 

"Probably  it  is  time  I  bore  tribute,  too,"  she  said 
to  herself. 

That  afternoon  she  took  down  a  glass  of  jelly  from 
the  pantry  shelves  and  set  forth  in  the  line  of  duty, 
frowning  and  rehearsing  a  presentation  speech  as  she 
went.  With  every  step  toward  the  Galway  cottage 
she  was  increasingly  confused  and  exasperated  with 
herself  for  even  thinking  of  a  speech.  As  she  drew 
102 


MARY  BRINGS  TRIBUTE  103 

near  she  heard  a  treble  chorus  of  "ohs!"  and  "ahs!" 
and  saw  Jack  on  the  porch  surrounded  by  children. 

"It's  dinosaur  foolishness  again!"  she  thought, 
pungently. 

He  was  in  the  full  fettle  of  nonsense,  his  head  a  little 
to  one  side  and  lowered,  while  he  looked  through  his 
eyebrows  at  his  hearers,  measuring  the  effect  of  his 
words.  She  thought  of  that  face  when  he  called  to 
Leddy,  "  I  am  going  to  kill  you ! "  and  felt  the  pulse  of 
inquiry  beat  over  all  that  lay  in  this  man's  repertory 
between  the  two  moods. 

"Then,  counting  each  one  in  his  big,  deep,  bass  voice, 
like  this,"  he  was  saying,  "that  funny  little  dwarf  kept 
dropping  oranges  out  of  the  tree  on  the  big  giant,  who 
could  not  wiggle  and  was  squeaking  in  protest  in  his 
little,  old  woman's  voice.  Every  orange  hit  him  right 
on  the  bridge  of  his  nose,  and  he  was  saying:  'You 
know  I  never  could  bear  yellow!  It  fusses  me  so.'  " 

"  He  doesn't  need  any  jelly !  I  am  going  on ! "  Mary 
thought. 

Then  Jack  saw  a  slim,  pliant  form  hastening  by  and 
a  brown  profile  under  hair  bare  of  a  hat,  with  eyes 
straight  ahead.  Mary  might  have  been  a  unit  of 
marching  infantry.  The  story  stopped  abruptly. 

"Yes — and — and — go  on!"    cried  the  children. 

Jack  held  up  his  hand  for  silence. 

"How  do  you  do?"  he  called,  and  she  caught  in  his 
tone  and  in  her  first  glimpse  of  his  face  a  certain  mis- 
chievousness,  as  if  he,  who  missed  no  points  for  idle  en- 
joyment of  any  situation,  had  a  satisfaction  in  taking 
her  by  surprise  with  his  greeting.  This  put  her  on  her 
mettle  with  the  quickness  of  a  summons  to  fence. 
She  was  as  nonchalant  as  he. 


104  OVER  THE  PASS 

"And  you  are  doing  well,  I  learn,"  she  answered. 

"Oh,  come  in  and  hear  it,  Miss  Ewold!  It's  the 
best  one  yet!"  cried  Belvedere  Smith.  "And — 
and " 

"And — and — "  began  the  chorus. 

Mary  went  to  the  hedge.  She  dropped  the  glass  of 
jelly  on  the  thick  carpet  of  the  privet. 

"I  have  just  brought  my  gift.  I'll  leave  it  here. 
Belvy  will  bring  it  when  the  story  is  over.  I  am  glad 
you  are  recovering  so  rapidly." 

"And — and — "    insisted  the  chorus. 

"You  oughtn't  to  miss  this  story.  It's  a  regular 
Jim  dandy!"  Belvedere  shouted. 

"Yes,  won't  you.  come  in?"  Jack  begged  in  serious 
urgency.  "I  pride  myself  that  it  is  almost  intellectual 
toward  the  close." 

"I  have  no  doubt,"  she  said,  looking  fairly  at  him 
from  under  her  hand,  which  she  held  up  to  shade  her 
face,  so  he  saw  only  the  snap  of  her  eyes  in  the  shadow. 
"But  I  am  in  a  hurry." 

And  he  was  looking  at  a  shoulder  and  a  quarter 
profile  as  she  turned  away. 

"Did  you  make  the  jelly  yourself?"  he  called. 

"Yes,  I  am  not  afraid  of  the  truth — I  did!"  she 
answered  with  a  backward  glance  and  not  stopping. 

"Oh,  bully!"  he  exclaimed  with  great  enthusiasm, 
in  which  she  detected  a  strain  of  what  she  classified 
as  impudence. 

"  But  all  the  time  the  giant  was  fumbling  in  his  pocket 
for  his  green  handkerchief.  You  know  the  dwarf  did 
not  like  green.  It  fussed  him  just  as  much  as  yellow 
fussed  the  giant.  But  it  was  a  narrow  pocket,  so  nar- 
row that  he  could  only  get  his  big  thumb  in,  and  very 


MARY  BRINGS  TRIBUTE  105 

deep.  So,  you  see — "  and  she  heard  the  tale  proceed- 
ing as  she  walked  on  to  the  end  of  the  street,  where  she 
turned  around  and  came  back  across  the  desert  and 
through  the  garden. 

On  the  way  she  found  it  amusing  to  consider  Jack  ju- 
dicially as  a  human  exhibit,  stripped  of  all  the  chimera 
of  romance  with  which  Little  Rivers  had  clothed  his 
personality.  If  he  had  not  happened  to  meet  her  on 
the  pass,  the  townspeople  would  have  regarded  this 
stranger  as  an  invasion  of  real  life  by  a  character  out 
of  a  comic  opera.  She  viewed  the  specimen  under  a 
magnifying  glass  in  all  angles,  turning  it  around  as  if 
it  were  a  bronze  or  an  ivory  statuette. 

1.  In  his  favor:    Firstly,  children  were  fond  of  him; 
but  his  extravagance  of  phrase  and  love  of  applause 
accounted  for  that.     Secondly,  Firio  was  devoted  to 
him.     Such  worshipful  attachment  on  the  part  of  a 
native  Indian  to  any  Saxon  was  remarkable.    Yet  this 
was  explained  by  his  love  of  color,  his  foible  for  the 
picturesque,  his  vagabond  irresponsibility,  and,  mostly, 
by  his  latent  savagery — which  she  would  hardly  have 
been  willing  to  apply  to  Ignacio's  worshipful  attach- 
ment to  herself. 

2.  Against   him:    Everything   of   any   importance, 
except  in  the  eyes  of  children  and  savages;  everything 
in  logic.     He  would  not  stand  analysis  at  all.     He  was 
without  definite  character.    He  was  posing,  affected, 
pleased  with  himself,  superficial,  and  theatrical,  and 
interested  in  people  only  so  long  as  they  amused  him 
or  gratified  his  personal  vanity. 

"I  had  the  best  of  the  argument  in  leaving  the  jelly 
on  the  hedge,  and  that  is  the  last  I  shall  hear  of  it," 
she  concluded. 


106  OVER  THE  PASS 

Not  so.  Mrs.  Galway  came  that  evening,  a  bearer 
of  messages. 

"He  says  it  is  the  most  wonderful  jelly  that  ever 
was,"  said  Mrs.  Galway.  "He  ate  half  the  glass  for 
dinner  and  is  saving  the  rest  for  breakfast — I'm  using 
his  own  words  and  you  know  what  a  killing  way  he  has 
of  putting  things — saving  it  for  breakfast  so  that  he 
will  have  something  to  live  through  the  night  for  and 
in  the  morning  the  joy  of  it  will  not  be  all  a  memory. 
He  wants  to  know  if  you  have  any  more  of  the  same 
kind." 

"Yes,  a  dozen  glasses,"  Mary  returned.  "Tell  him 
we  are  glad  of  the  opportunity  of  finishing  last  year's 
stock,  and  I  send  it  provided  he  eats  half  a  glass  with 
every  meal." 

"I  don't  know  what  his  answer  will  be  to  that," 
said  Mrs.  Galway,  contracting  her  brow  studiously  at 
Mary.  "But  he  would  have  one  quick.  He  always 
has.  He's  so  poetic  and  all  that,  we're  planning  to  go 
to  the  station  to  see  him  off  and  pelt  him  with  flowers; 
and  Dr.  Patterson  is  going  to  fashion  a  white  cat  out 
of  white  carnations,  with  deep  red  ones  for  the  black 
stripes,  for  the  children  to  present." 

"Hurrah!"  exclaimed  Mary  blithely,  and  went  for 
the  jelly. 

She  was  spared  further  bulletins  on  the  state  of  health 
of  the  wounded  until  her  father  returned  from  his  daily 
call  the  next  morning.  She  was  in  the  living-room  and 
she  knew  by  his  step  on  the  porch,  vigorous  yet  light, 
that  he  was  uplifted  by  good  news  or  by  the  anticipa- 
tion of  the  exploitation  of  some  new  idea — a  pleasure 
second  only  to  that  of  the  idea's  birth.  Such  was  his 
elation  that  he  broke  one  of  his  own  rules  by  tossing 


MARY  BRINGS  TRIBUTE  107 

some  of  the  books  loaned  to  Jack  onto  the  broad  top 
of  the  table  of  the  living-room,  which  was  sacred  to 
the  isolation  of  the  ivory  paper-knife. 

"He  has  named  the  date!"  shouted  the  Doge. 
"He  goes  by  to-morrow's  train!  It  will  be  a  gala 
affair,  almost  an  historical  moment  in  the  early  history 
of  this  community.  I  am  to  make  a  speech  presenting 
him  with  the  freedom  of  the  whole  world.  Between 
us  we  have  hit  on  a  proper  modern  symbol  of  the  gift. 
He  slips  me  his  Pullman  ticket  and  I  formally  offer  it 
to  him  as  the  key  to  the  hospitality  of  the  seven  seas, 
the  two  hemispheres,  and  the  teeming  cities  that  lie 
beyond  the  range.  It  will  be  great  fun,  with  plenty 
of  persiflage.  And,  Mary,  they  suggest  that  you  write 
some  verses — ridiculous  verses,  in  keeping  with  the 
whole  nonsensical  business." 

"You  mean  that  I  am  to  stand  on  the  platform  and 
read  poetry  dedicated  to  him?"  she  demanded. 

"Poetry,  Mary?  You  grow  ambitious.  Not  poetry 
— foolish  doggerel.  Or  someone  will  read  it  for  you." 

He  had  not  failed  to  watch  the  play  of  her  expres- 
sion. She  had  received  all  his  nonsense,  announced 
in  his  best  style  of  simulated  forensic  grandeur,  with 
a  certain  unchanging  serenity  which  was  unamused; 
which  was,  indeed,  barely  interested. 

"And  someone  else  shall  write  it,  for  I  don't  think 
of  any  verses,"  she  said,  with  a  slight  shrug  of  the 
shoulder.  "  Besides,  I  shall  not  be  there." 

"Not  be  there!    People  will  remark  your  absence!" 

"Will  they?"  she  asked,  thoughtfully,  as  if  that  had 
not  occurred  to  her.  "No,  they  will  be  too  occupied 
with  the  persiflage.  I  am  going  to  ride  out  to  the  pass 
in  the  morning  very  early — before  daybreak." 


108  OVER  THE  PASS 

"But" — he  was  positively  frolicsome  as  he  caught 
her  hands  and  waved  them  back  and  forth,  while  he 
rocked  his  shoulders  — "  when  you  are  stubborn,  Mary, 
have  your  way.  I  will  make  your  excuses.  And  I  to 
work  now.  It  is  the  hour  of  the  hoe,"  as  he  called  all 
hours  except  those  of  darkness  and  the  hot  midday. 

For  Jasper  Ewold  was  no  idler  in  the  affairs  of  his 
ranch  or  of  the  town.  Few  city  men  were  so  busy. 
His  everlasting  talk  was  incidental,  like  the  babbling 
of  a  brook  which,  however,  keeps  steadily  flowing  on; 
and  the  stored  scholarship  of  his  mind  was  supplemented 
by  long  evenings  with  no  other  relaxation  but  reading. 
Now  as  he  went  down  the  path  he  broke  into  song; 
and  when  the  Doge  sang  it  was  something  awful,  ex- 
cusable only  by  the  sheer  happiness  that  brought  on 
the  attack. 

Mary  had  important  sewing,  which  this  morning 
she  chose  to  do  in  her  room  rather  than  in  her  favorite 
spot  in  the  garden.  She  closed  the  shutters  on  the 
sunny  side  and  sat  down  by  the  window  nearest  the 
garden,  peculiarly  sensible  of  the  soft  light  and  cool 
spaciousness  of  an  inner  world.  The  occasional  buzz 
of  a  bee,  the  flutter  of  the  leaves  of  the  poplar,  might 
have  been  the  voice  of  the  outer  world  in  Southern 
Spain  or  Southern  Italy,  or  anywhere  else  where  the 
air  is  balmy. 

And  to-morrow!  Out  to  Galeria  in  the  fervor  of  a 
pilgrim  to  some  shrine,  with  the  easy  movement  of  her 
pony  and  the  rigid  lines  of  the  pass  gradually  drawing 
nearer  and  the  sky  ever  distant!  She  would  be  mistress 
of  her  thoughts  in  all  the  silent  glamour  of  morning 
on  the  desert.  She  would  hear  the  train  stop  at  the 
station,  its  heavy  effort  as  it  pulled  out,  and  watch  it 


MARY  BRINGS  TRIBUTE  109 

winding  over  the  flashing  steel  threads  in  a  clamor  of 
stridency  and  harshness,  which  grew  fainter  and  fainter. 
And  she  would  smile  as  it  disappeared  around  a  bend 
in  the  range.  She  would  smile  at  him,  at  the  incident, 
just  as  carelessly  as  he  had  smiled  when  he  told  of  the 
dinosaur. 


XIII 
A  JOURNEY  ON  CRUTCHES 

The  sun  became  benign  in  its  afternoon  slant.  Little 
Rivers  was  beginning  to  move  after  its  siesta,  with  the 
stretching  of  muscles  that  would  grow  more  vigorous 
as  evening  approached  and  freshened  life  came  into 
the  air  with  the  sprinkle  of  sunset  brilliance. 

To  Jack  the  hour  palpably  brought  a  reminder  of 
the  misery  of  the  moment  when  a  thing  long  postponed 
must  at  last  be  performed.  The  softness  of  speculative 
fancy  faded  from  his  face.  His  lips  tightened  in  a  way 
that  seemed  to  bring  his  chin  into  prominence  in  mas- 
tery of  his  being.  As  he  called  Firio,  his  voice  unusually 
high-pitched,  he  did  not  look  out  at  P.  D.  and  Wrath 
of  God  and  Jag  Ear. 

Firio  came  with  the  eagerness  of  one  who  is  rest- 
less for  action.  He  leaned  on  the  windowsill,  his  el- 
bows spread,  his  chin  cupped  in  his  hands,  his  Indian 
blankness  of  countenance  enlivened  by  the  glow  of  his 
eyes,  as  jewels  enliven  dull  brown  velvet. 

"  Firio,  I  have  something  to  tell  you." 

"Sit" 

There  was  a  laboring  of  Jack's  throat  muscles,  and 
then  he  forced  out  the  truth  in  a  few  words. 

"Firio,"  he  said,  "this  is  my  trail  end.  I  am  going 
back  to  New  York  to-morrow." 

"Si!"  answered  Firio,  without  a  tremor  of  emotion; 
but  his  eyes  glowed  confidently,  fixedly,  into  Jack's. 
110 


A  JOURNEY  ON  CRUTCHES  111 

"There  will  be  money  for  you,  and " 

"Si!"  said  Firio  mechanically,  as  if  repeating  the 
lines  of  a  lesson. 

Was  this  Indian  boy  prepared  for  the  news?  Or  did 
he  not  care?  Was  he  simply  clay  that  served  without 
feeling?  The  thought  made  Jack  wince.  He  paused, 
and  the  dark  eyes,  as  in  a  spell,  kept  staring  into  his. 

"And  you  get  P.  D.  and  Wrath  of  God  and  Jag  Ear 
and,  yes,  the  big  spurs  and  the  chaps,  too,  to  keep  to 
remember  me  by." 

Firio  did  not  answer. 

"You  are  not  pleased?    You " 

"Si!  I  will  keep  them  for  you.  You  will  want 
them;  you  will  come  back  to  all  this;"  and  suddenly 
Firio  was  galvanized  into  the  life  of  a  single  gesture. 
He  swept  his  arm  toward  the  sky,  indicating  infinite 
distance. 

"No,  I  shall  never  come  back!  I  can't!"  Jack  said; 
and  his  face  had  set  hard,  as  if  it  were  a  wall  about  to 
be  driven  at  a  wall.  "I  must  go  and  I  must  stay." 

"Si!"  said  Firio,  resuming  his  impassiveness,  and 
slipped  around  the  corner  of  the  house. 

"He  does  care!"  Jack  cried  with  a  smile,  which, 
however,  was  not  the  smile  of  gardens,  of  running  brooks, 
and  of  song.  "  I  am  glad — glad ! ' ' 

He  picked  up  his  crutches  and  went  out  to  the  three 
steeds  of  trail  memory: 

"And  you  care — you  care!"  he  repeated  to  them. 

He  drew  a  lugubrious  grimace  in  mockery  at  Wrath 
of  God.  He  tickled  the  sliver  of  the  donkey's  ear, 
whereat  Jag  Ear  wiggled  the  sliver  in  blissful  uncon- 
sciousness that  he  had  lost  any  of  the  ornamental 
equipment  of  his  tribe. 


112  OVER  THE  PASS 

"You  are  like  most  of  us;  we  don't  see  our  deform- 
ities, Jag  Ear,"  Jack  told  him.  "And  if  others  were 
also  blind  to  them,  why,  we  should  all  be  good-looking!" 

His  arm  slipped  around  P.  D.'s  neck  and  he  ran  a 
finger  up  and  down  P.  D's  nose  with  a  tickling  caress. 

"You  old  plodder!"  he  said.  "You  know  a  lot. 
It's  good  to  have  the  love  of  any  living  thing  that  has 
been  near  me  as  long  as  you  have." 

This  preposterous  being  was  preposterously  senti- 
mental over  a  pair  of  ponies  and  an  earless  donkey. 
When  Mrs.  Galway,  who  had  watched  him  from  the 
window,  came  out  on  the  porch  she  saw  that  he  was  on 
his  way  through  the  gate  in  the  hedge  to  the  street. 

"Look  here!  Did  the  doctor  say  you  might?"  she 
called. 

"No,  my  leg  says  it!"  Jack  answered,  gaily.  "Just 
a  little  walk!  Back  soon." 

It  was  his  first  enterprise  in  locomotion  outside  the 
limits  of  Jim  Gal  way's  yard  since  he  had  been  wounded. 
He  turned  blissful  traveller  again.  Having  come  to 
know  the  faces  of  the  citizens,  now  he  was  to  look  into 
the  faces  of  their  habitations.  The  broad  main  street, 
with  its  rows  of  trees,  narrowed  with  perspective  until 
it  became  a  gray  spot  of  desert  sand.  Under  the  trees 
leisurely  flowed  those  arteries  of  ranch  and  garden- 
life,  the  irrigation  ditches.  Continuity  of  line  in  the 
hedge-fences  was  evidently  a  municipal  requirement; 
but  over  the  hedges  individualism  expressed  itself 
freely,  yet  with  a  harmony  which  had  been  set  by 
public  fashion. 

The  houses  were  of  cement  in  simple  design.  They 
had  no  architectural  message  except  that  of  a  back- 
ground for  ornamentation  by  the  genius  of  the  soil's 


A  JOURNEY  ON  CRUTCHES  113 

productivity.  They  waited  on  vines  to  cover  their 
sides  and  trees  to  cast  shade  across  their  doorways. 
One  need  not  remain  long  to  know  the  old  families  in 
this  community,  where  the  criterion  of  local  aristoc- 
racy was  the  size  of  your  plums  or  the  number  of  crops 
of  alfalfa  you  could  grow  in  a  year. 

Already  Jack  felt  at  home.  It  was  as  if  he  were 
friends  with  a  whole  world,  tacking  the  social  dis- 
tinctions which  only  begin  when  someone  acquires 
sufficient  worldly  possessions  to  give  exclusive,  formal 
dinners.  He  knew  every  passer-by  well  enough  to 
address  him  or  her  by  the  Christian  name.  Women 
called  to  him  from  porches  with  a  dozen  invitations  to 
visit  gardens. 

"Just  a  saunter,  just  a  try-out  before  I  take  the 
train.  Not  going  far,"  he  always  answered;  yet  there 
was  something  in  his  bearing  that  suggested  a  definite 
mission. 

"We  hate  to  lose  you!"  called  Mrs.  Smith. 

"I  hate  to  be  lost!"  Jack  called  back;  "but  that 
is  just  my  natural  luck." 

"I  suppose  you've  got  your  work  cut  out  for  you 
back  East,  same's  everybody  else,  somewhere  or  other, 
'less  they're  millionaires,  who  all  stay  in  the  city  and 
try  to  run  from  microbes  in  their  automobiles." 

"Yes,  I  have  work — lots  of  it,"  said  Jack,  ruefully. 
He  shifted  his  weight  on  the  crutches,  paused  and 
looked  at  the  sky.  The  Eternal  Painter  was  dipping 
his  brush  lightly  and  sweeping  soft,  silvery  films,  as  a 
kind  of  glorified  finger-exercise,  over  an  intangible  blue. 

"  Why  care?  Why  care?  "  His  Majesty  was  asking. 
"Why  not  leave  all  the  problems  of  earthly  existence 
to  your  lungs?  Why  not  lie  back  and  look  on  at  things 


114  OVER  THE  PASS 

and  breathe  my  air?  That  is  enough  to  keep  your 
whole  being  in  tune  with  the  Infinite." 

It  was  his  afternoon  mood.  At  sunset  he  would 
have  another.  Then  he  would  be  crying  out  against 
the  folly  of  wasting  one  precious  moment  in  the  seons, 
because  that  moment  could  never  return  to  be  lived 
over. 

Jack  kept  on  until  he  recognized  the  cement  bridge 
where  he  had  stopped  when  he  came  from  the  post- 
office  with  Mary.  Left  bare  of  its  surroundings,  the 
first  habitation  in  Little  Rivers,  with  the  ell  which  had 
been  added  later,  would  have  appeared  a  barracks. 
But  Jasper  Ewold  had  the  oldest  trees  and  the  most 
luxuriant  hedge  and  vines  as  the  reward  of  his  pioneer- 
dom. 

When  Jack  crossed  the  bridge  and  stood  in  the  open- 
ing of  the  hedge  there  was  no  one  on  the  porch  in  the 
inviting  shade  of  the  prodigal  bougainvillea  vines.  So 
he  hitched  his  way  up  the  steps.  Feeling  that  it  was  a 
formal  occasion,  he  searched  for  the  door-bell.  There 
was  none.  He  rapped  on  the  casing  and  waited,  while 
he  looked  at  the  cool,  quiet  interior,  with  the  portrait 
of  David  facing  him  from  the  wall. 

"David,  you  seem  to  be  the  only  one  at  home,"  he 
remarked,  for  there  had  been  no  answer  to  his  raps; 
"and  you  are  too  busy  getting  a  bead  on  Goliath  to 
answer  the  immaterial  questions  of  a  wayfarer." 

Accepting  the  freedom  of  the  Little  Rivers  custom 
on  such  occasions,  he  followed  the  path  to  the  rear. 
His  head  knocked  off  the  dead  petals  of  a  rambler  rose 
blossom,  scattering  them  at  his  feet.  Rounding  the 
corner  of  the  house,  he  saw  the  arbor  where  he  had 
dined  the  night  of  his  arrival,  and  beyond  this  an  old- 


A  JOURNEY  ON  CRUTCHES  115 

fashioned  flower  garden  separated  by  a  path  from  a 
garden  of  roses.  There  was  a  sound  of  activity  from 
the  kitchen  behind  a  trellis  screen,  but  he  did  not  call 
out  for  guidance.  He  would  trust  to  finding  his  own 
way. 

,  When  he  came  to  the  broad  path,  its  stretch  lay 
under  a  crochet-work  of  shadows  from  the  ragged 
leaves  of  two  rows  of  palms  which  ran  to  the  edge  of 
an  orange  grove,  and  the  centre  of  this  path  was  in  a 
straight  line  with  the  bottom  of  the  V  of  Galeria. 

Jasper  Ewold  had  laid  out  his  little  domain  according 
to  a  set  plan  before  the  water  was  first  let  go  in  laugh- 
ing triumph  over  the  parched  earth,  and  this  plan,  as 
one  might  see  on  every  hand,  was  expressive  of  the 
training  of  older  civilizations  in  landscape  gardening, 
which  ages  of  men  striving  for  harmonious  forms  of 
beauty  in  green  and  growing  things  had  tested,  and 
which  the  Doge,  in  all  his  unconventionalism  of  person- 
ality, was  as  little  inclined  to  amend  as  he  was  to 
amend  the  classic  authors.  An  avenue  of  palms  is  the 
epic  of  the  desert;  a  bougainvillea  vine  its  sonnet. 

Between  the  palms  to  the  right  and  left  Jack  had 
glimpses  of  a  vegetable  garden;  of  rows  of  berry  bushes; 
of  a  grove  of  young  fig-trees;  of  rows  of  the  sword- 
bundles  of  pineapple  tops.  Everything  except  the  old- 
fashioned  flower-bed,  with  its  border  of  mignonette, 
and  the  generous  beds  of  roses  and  other  flowers  of 
the  bountiful  sisterhood  of  petals  of  artificial  cultiva- 
tion, spoke  of  utility  which  must  make  the  ground  pay 
as  well  as  please. 

Jack  took  each  step  as  if  he  were  apprehensive  of 
disturbing  the  quiet.  Midway  of  the  avenue  of  palms 
ran  a  cross  avenue,  and  at  the  meeting-point  was  a 


116  OVER  THE  PASS 

circle,  which  evidently  waited  till  the  oranges  and  the 
olives  should  pay  for  a  statue  and  surrounding  benches. 
Over  the  breadth  of  the  cross  avenue  lay  the  glossy 
canopy  of  the  outstretched  branches  of  umbrella-trees. 
A  table  of  roughly  planed  boards  painted  green  and 
green  rattan  chairs  were  in  keeping  with  the  restful 
effect,  while  the  world  without  was  aglare  with  light. 

Here  Mary  had  brought  her  sewing  for  the  afternoon. 
She  was  working  so  intently  that  she  had  not  heard 
his  approach.  He  had  paused  just  as  his  line  of  vision 
came  flush  with  the  trunks  of  the  umbrella-trees.  For 
the  first  time  he  saw  his  companion  in  adventure  in 
repose,  her  head  bent,  leaving  clear  the  line  of  her 
neck  from  the  roots  of  her  hair  to  the  collar,  and  the 
soft  light  bringing  out  the  delicate  brown  of  her  skin. 

There  seemed  no  movement  anywhere  in  the  world 
at  the  moment,  except  the  flash  of  her  needle  in  and 
out. 


XIV 
"HOW  FAST  YOU  SEWt" 

And  she  had  not  seen  him!  He  was  touched  with  a 
sense  of  guilt  for  having  looked  so  long;  for  not  hav- 
ing at  once  called  to  her;  and  rather  than  give  her  the 
shock  of  calling  now,  he  moved  toward  her,  the  scuff 
of  his  limp,  pendent  foot  attracting  her  attention. 
Her  start  at  the  sound  was  followed,  when  she  saw  him, 
with  amazement  and  a  flush  and  a  movement  as 
if  she  would  rise.  But  she  controlled  the  movement, 
if  not  the  flush,  and  fell  back  into  her  chair,  picking 
up  her  sewing,  which  had  dropped  on  the  table. 

It  was  like  him,  she  might  well  think,  to  come  un- 
expectedly, without  invitation  or  announcement.  She 
was  alert,  ready  to  take  the  offensive  as  the  best  means 
of  defence,  and  wishing,  in  devout  futility,  that  he 
had  stayed  away.  He  was  smiling  happily  at  every- 
thing in  cosmos  and  at  her  as  a  part  of  it. 

"Good  afternoon!" 

"Good  afternoon!" 

"That  last  lot  of  jelly  was  better  than  the  first,"  he 
said  softly. 

"  Was  it?    You  must  favor  vintage  jelly ! " 

"I  came  to  call — my  p.  p.  c.  call — and  to  see  your 
garden,"  he  added. 

"Is  there  any  particular  feature  that  interests  you?" 
she  asked.  "The  date-trees?  The  aviary?  The  nur- 
sery?" 

117 


118  OVER  THE  PASS 

"  No,"  he  answered, "  not  just  yet.  It  is  very  cool  here 
under  the  umbrella-trees,  isn't  it?  I  have  walked  all  the 
way  from  the  Galways  and  I'll  rest  a  while,  if  I  may." 

He  was  no  longer  the  play  cavalier  in  overorna- 
mented  chaparejos  and  cart-wheel  spurs,  but  a  lame 
fellow  in  overalls,  who  was  hitching  toward  her  on 
crutches,  his  cowpuncher  hat  held  by  the  brim  and 
flopping  with  every  step.  But  he  wore  the  silk  shirt 
and  the  string  tie,  and  somehow  he  made  even  the  over- 
alls seem  "dressy." 

"Pray  sit  down,"  she  said  politely. 

Standing  his  crutches  against  the  table,  he  accepted 
the  invitation.  She  resumed  her  sewing,  eyes  on  the 
needle,  lips  pressed  into  a  straight  line  and  head  bend- 
ing low.  He  might  have  been  a  stranger  on  a  bench 
in  a  public  park  for  all  the  attention  she  was  paying 
to  him.  She  realized  that  she  was  rude  and  took  satis- 
faction in  it  as  the  only  way  of  expressing  her  determi- 
nation not  to  reopen  a  closed  incident. 

"It's  wonderful — wonderful!"  he  observed,  in  a 
voice  of  contemplative  awe. 

"What  is?"  she  asked. 

"Why,  how  fast  you  sew!" 

"Yes?"  she  said,  as  automatically  as  she  stitched. 
"Your  wound  is  quite  all  right?  No  danger  of  in- 
fection?" 

"I  don't  blame  you!"  he  burst  out.  His  tone  had 
turned  sad  and  urgent. 

She  looked  up  quickly,  with  the  flare  of  a  frown.  His 
remark  had  brought  her  out  of  her  pose  and  she  became 
vivid  and  real. 

"Blame  me!"  she  demanded,  sharply,  as  one  who 
flies  to  arms. 


"HOW  FAST  YOU  SEW!"  119 

But  she  met  a  new  phase — neither  banter,  nor  fancy, 
nor  unvarying  coolness  in  the  face  of  fire.  He  was  all 
contrition  and  apology.  Must  she  be  the  audience  to 
some  fresh  exhibition  of  his  versatility? 

"I  do  not  blame  you  for  feeling  the  way  that  you 
do,"  he  said. 

"How  do  you  know  how  I  feel?"  she  asked;  and 
as  far  as  he  could  see  into  her  eyes  there  was  nothing 
but  the  flash  of  sword-points. 

"I  don't.  I  only  know  how  I  think  you  feel — how 
you  might  well  feel,"  he  answered  delicately.  "After 
Pete  let  his  gun  drop  in  the  store  I  should  not  have 
named  terms  for  an  encounter.  I  should  have  turned 
to  the  law  for  protection  for  the  few  hours  that  I  had  to 
remain  in  town." 

"But  to  you  that  would  have  been  avoiding  bat- 
tle!" she  exclaimed. 

"Which  may  take  courage,"  he  rejoined.  "What 
I  did  was  selfish.  It  was  bravado,  with  no  thought  of 
your  position." 

"It  is  late  to  worry  about  that  now.  What  does 
it  matter?  I  did  not  want  anyone  killed  on  my  ac- 
count, and  no  one  was,"  she  insisted.  "Besides,  you 
should  not  be  blue,"  this  with  a  ripple  of  satire;  "it  is 
not  quite  all  bravado  to  face  Pete  Leddy's  gun  at 
twenty  yards." 

"And  it  is  not  courage.  Courage  is  a  force  of  will 
driving  you  into  danger  for  some  high  purpose.  I 
want  you  to  realize  that  I  am  not  such  a  barbarian 
that  I  do  not  know  that  I  could  have  kept  you  out  of 
it  all  if  I  had  had  proper  self-control.  Though  prob- 
ably, on  the  impulse,  I  would  do  the  fool  thing  over 
again!  Yes,  that's  the  worst  of  it!" 


120  OVER  THE  PASS 

"There  is  a  devil  in  him!"  Ignacio's  words  were 
sounding  in  her  ears.  To  how  many  men  had  he 
said,  "I  am  going  to  kill  you?"  What  other  quarrels 
had  he  known  in  his  wanderings  from  Colorado  to 
Chihuahua? 

"If  you  really  want  my  opinion,  I  am  glad,  so  far 
as  I  am  concerned,  that  you  did  fight,"  she  said  lightly. 
"Aren't  you  a  hero?  Isn't  the  town  free  of  Leddy? 
And  you  take  the  train  in  the  morning!" 

"Yes." 

The  monosyllable  was  drawn  out  rather  faintly. 
For  the  first  time  since  they  had  met  on  the  pass  she 
felt  she  was  mistress  of  the  situation.  This  time  she 
had  not  to  plead  with  him  in  fear  for  his  life.  She 
could  regard  him  without  any  sense  of  obligation,  this 
invader  of  her  garden  retreat  who  had  to  put  in  one  more 
afternoon  in  a  dull  desert  town  before  he  was  away  to 
that  outside  world  which  she  might  know  only  through 
books  and  memory. 

She  rose  exultantly,  disregarding  any  formality  that 
she  would  owe  to  the  average  guest;  for  an  average 
guest  he  was  not.  Her  attitude  meant  that  she  was 
having  the  last  word;  that  she  was  showing  her  mettle. 

He  did  not  rise.  He  was  staring  into  the  sunlight, 
as  if  it  were  darkness  alive  with  flitting  spectres  which 
baffled  identification. 

"Yes,  back — back  to  armies  of  Leddys!"  he  said 
slowly. 

But  this  she  saw  as  still  another  pose.  It  did  not 
make  her  pause  in  gathering  up  her  sewing.  She  was 
convinced  that  there  was  nothing  more  for  her  to  say, 
except  to  give  their  parting  an  appearance  of  ease  and 
unconcern. 


"HOW  FAST  YOU  SEW!"  121 

"Is  it  work  you  mean?  You  are  not  used  to  that,  I 
take  it?"  she  inquired  a  little  sarcastically. 

"Yes,  call  it  work,"  he  answered,  looking  away  from 
the  spectres  and  back  to  her. 

"And  you  have  never  done  any  work!"  she  added. 

"Not  much,"  he  admitted,  with  his  old,  airy  care- 
lessness. He  was  smiling  at  the  spectres  now,  as  he 
had  at  the  dinosaur. 

"As  there  is  nothing  particular  about  the  garden 
that  I  can  show  you — "  she  was  moving  away. 

"No,  I  will  be  walking  back  to  the  house,"  he  said 
after  she  had  taken  a  few  steps.  "Will  you  wait  on 
my  slow  pace?" 

He  reached  for  his  crutches,  lifted  himself  to  his  feet 
and  swung  to  her  side.  She  who  wished  that  the  in- 
terview were  over  saw  that  it  must  be  prolonged.  Then 
suddenly  she  realized  the  weakness  as  well  as  the 
brusqueness  of  her  attitude.  She  had  been  about  to 
fly  from  him  as  from  something  that  she  feared.  It 
was  not  necessary.  It  was  foolish,  even  cowardly. 

"I  thought  perhaps  you  preferred  to  be  alone,  you 
seemed  so  abstracted,"  she  said,  lamely;  and  then, 
as  they  came  out  into  the  sunlight  in  the  circle,  she 
began  talking  of  the  garden  as  she  would  to  any  visi- 
tor; of  its  beginnings,  its  growth,  and  its  future,  when 
her  father's  plans  should  have  been  fulfilled. 

"And  in  all  these  years  you  have  never  been  back 
East?"  he  asked. 

"  No.  We  are  always  planning  a  trip,  but  the  money 
which  we  save  for  it  goes  into  more  plantings." 

They  had  been  moving  slowly  toward  the  house, 
but  now  he  stopped  and  his  glance  swept  the  sky  and 
rested  on  Galeria. 


122  OVER  THE  PASS 

"It  is  the  best  valley  of  all!  I  knew  it  as  soon  as 
I  saw  it  from  the  pass!"  and  the  rapture  of  the  scene 
was  sounding  in  every  syllable  like  chimes  out  of  the 
distance.  She  knew  that  he  was  far  away  from  the 
garden,  and  delaying,  still  delaying.  If  she  spoke  she 
felt  that  he  would  not  hear  what  she  said.  If  she  went 
on  it  seemed  certain  that  she  would  leave  him  standing 
there  like  a  statue. 

"And  there  is  more  land  here  to  make  gardens  like 
this?"  he  asked  slowly,  absorbed. 

"Yes,  with  water  and  labor  and  time." 

Though  his  face  was  in  the  full  light  of  the  sun,  it 
seemed  at  times  in  shadow;  then  it  glowed,  as  if  be- 
tween two  passions.  For  an  instant  it  was  grim,  the 
chin  coming  forward,  the  brows  contracting;  then  it 
was  transformed  with  something  that  was  as  a  com- 
plete surrender  to  the  transport  of  irresistible  tempta- 
tion. He  looked  down  at  her  quickly  and  she  saw  him 
in  the  mood  of  story-telling  to  the  children,  suffused 
with  the  radiance  of  a  decision. 

"I  prefer  the  Leddys  of  Little  Rivers  to  the  Leddys 
of  New  York,"  he  said.  "I  am  not  going  to-morrow! 
I  am  going  to  have  land  and  a  home  under  the  a?gis  of 
the  Eternal  Painter  and  in  sight  of  Galeria,  and 
worship  at  the  shrine  of  fecund  peace.  Will  you  and 
the  Doge  help  me?"  he  asked  with  an  enthusiasm  that 
was  infectious.  "May  I  go  to  his  school  of  agricul- 
ture, horticulture,  and  floriculture?" 

Dumfounded,  she  bent  her  head  and  stared  at  the 
ground  to  hide  her  astonishment. 

"You  want  citizens,  industrious  young  citizens, 
don't  you?"  he  persisted. 

"Yes,  yes!"  she  said  hastily  and  confusedly. 


"HOW  FAST  YOU  SEW!"  123 

"Do  you  know  a  good  piece  of  land?"  he  continued. 

"Yes,  several  parcels,"  she  answered,  recovering  her 
poise  and  smiling  in  mockery. 

"Come  on!"   he  cried. 

He  was  taking  long,  jumping  steps  on  his  crutches  as 
they  went  up  the  path. 

"You  will  take  me  to  look  at  the  land,  won't  you, 
please — now?  I  want  to  get  acquainted  with  my  fu- 
ture estate.  I  mean  to  beat  the  Smiths  at  plums,  Jim 
Galway  at  alfalfa,  even  rival  Bob  Worther  at  pump- 
kins and  peonies.  And  you  will  help  me  lay  out  the 
flower  garden,  won't  you?  You  see,  I  shall  have  to 
call  in  the  experts  in  every  line  to  start  with,  before  I 
begin  to  improve  on  them  and  make  them  all  jealous. 
I  may  find  a  kind  of  plum  that  will  grow  on  alfalfa 
stalks,"  he  hazarded.  "WTiat  a  horticultural  sensa- 
tion!" 

"And  a  spineless  cactus  called  the  Leddy!" 

His  eyes  were  laughing  into  hers  and  hers  irresistibly 
laughed  back.  She  guessed  that  he  was  only  joking. 
He  had  acted  so  well  in  the  latest  role  that  she  had 
actually  believed  in  his  sincerity  for  a  moment.  He 
meant  to  take  the  train,  of  course,  but  his  resourceful 
capriciousness  had  supplied  him  with  a  less  awkward 
exit  from  the  garden  than  she  had  provided.  He  would 
yet  have  the  last  word  if  she  did  not  watch  out — a  last 
mischievous  word  at  her  expense. 

"First,  you  will  have  to  plow  the  ground,  in  the 
broiling  hot  sun,"  she  said  tauntingly,  when  they  had 
passed  around  to  the  porch.  She  was  starting  into  the 
house  with  nervous,  precipitate  triumph.  The  last 
word  was  hers,  after  all. 

"But  you  are  going  to  show  me  the  land  now  I" 


124  OVER  THE  PASS 

His  tone  was  so  serious  and  so  hurt  that  she  paused. 

"And" — with  the  seriousness  electrified  by  a  glance 
that  sought  for  mutual  understanding — -"and  we  are 
to  forget  about  that  duel  and  the  whole  hero-desper- 
ado business.  I  am  a  prospective  settler  who  just 
arrived  this  afternoon.  I  came  direct  to  headquarters 
to  inquire  about  property.  The  Doge  not  being  at 
home,  won't  you  show  me  around?" 

Again  he  had  said  the  right  thing  at  the  right  time, 
with  a  delightful  impersonality  precluding  sentiment. 

"I  couldn't  be  unaccommodating,"  she  admitted. 
"It  is  against  all  Little  Rivers  ethics." 

"I  feel  like  a  butterfly  about  to  come  out  of  his 
miserable  chrysalis!  Haven't  you  a  walking-stick?  I 
am  going  to  shed  the  crutches!" 

She  became  femininely  solicitous  at  once. 

"Are  you  sure  you  ought  ?  Did  the  doctor  say  you 
might?  Is  the  wound  healed?" 

"There  isn't  any  wound  1"  he  answered.  "That  is 
one  of  the  things  which  we  are  to  forget." 

She  brought  a  stick  and  he  laid  the  crutches  on  the 
porch. 

He  favored  the  lame  leg,  yet  he  kept  up  a  clipping 
pace,  talking  the  while  as  fast  as  the  Doge  himself  as 
they  passed  through  one  of  the  side  streets  out  onto  the 
cactus-spotted,  baking,  cracked  levels. 

"This  is  it!"  she  said  finally.  "This  is  all  that 
father  and  I  had  to  begin  with." 

"Enough!"  he  answered,  and  held  out  his  hands, 
palms  open.  "With  callouses  I  will  win  luxuriance!" 

She  showed  him  the  irrigation  ditch  from  which  he 
should  draw  his  water;  she  told  him  of  the  first  steps; 
she  painted  all  the  difficulties  in  the  darkest  colors, 


"HOW  FAST  YOU  SEW!"  125 

without  once  lessening  the  glow  of  his  optimism.  He 
was  so  overwhelmingly,  boyishly  happy  that  she  had 
to  be  happy  with  him  in  making  believe  that  he  was 
about  to  be  a  real  rancher.  But  he  should  not  have 
the  sport  all  on  his  side.  He  must  not  think  that  she 
accepted  this  latest  departure  of  his  imagination  in- 
carnated by  his  Thespian  gift  in  anything  but  his  own 
spirit. 

"You  plowing!  You  spraying  trees  for  the  scale! 
You  digging  up  weeds!  You  stacking  alfalfa!  You 
settling  down  in  one  place  as  a  unit  of  co-ordinate  in- 
dustry! You  earning  bread  by  the  sweat  of  your 
brow!  You  with  callouses!"  Thus  she  laughed  at 
him. 

Very  seriously  he  held  out  his  hands  and  ran  a  finger 
around  a  palm  and  across  the  finger-joints: 

"That  is  where  I  shall  get  them,"  he  said.  "But 
not  on  the  thumb.  I  believe  you  get  them  on  the 
thumb  only  by  playing  golf." 

He  asked  about  carpenters  and  laborers;  he  chose 
the  site  for  his  house;  he  plotted  the  walks  and  or- 
chards. She  could  not  refuse  her  advice.  Who  can 
about  the  planning  of  new  houses  and  gardens?  He 
had  everything  quite  settled  except  the  land  grant 
from  the  Doge  when  they  started  back;  while  the  sun, 
with  the  swift  passage  of  time  in  such  fascinating  di- 
version, had  swung  low  in  its  ellipse.  When  they 
reached  the  main  street  the  Doge  was  on  the  porch 
passing  his  opinion  on  the  Eternal  Painter's  evening 
work. 

"Some  very  remarkable  purples  to-night,  I  admit, 
Your  Majesty,  without  any  intention  of  giving  you  too 
good  an  opinion  of  yourself;  but  otherwise,  you  are 


126  OVER  THE  PASS 

not  up  to  your  mark.  There  must  have  been  a  down- 
pour in  the  rainy  world  on  the  other  side  of  the  Sierras 
that  moistened  your  pigments.  Next  thing  we  know 
you  will  be  turning  water-colorist ! "  he  was  saying, 
when  he  heard  Jack's  voice. 

"Here's  a  new  settler!"  Jack  called.  "I  am  going 
to  stay  in  Little  Rivers  and  win  all  the  prizes." 

"You  are  joking!"   gasped  the  Doge. 

"Not  joking,"  said  Jack.  "I  want  to  close  the 
bargain  to-night." 

"You  bring  color  and  adventure — yes!  I  did  not 
expect  the  honor — the  town  will  be  delighted!  I  am 
overwhelmed!  Will  you  plow  with  Pete  Leddy's 
gun  drawn  by  Wrath  of  God,  sir,  and  harrow  with 
your  spurs  drawn  by  Jag  Ear?  Shall  you  make  a 
specialty  of  olives?  Do  you  dare  to  aspire  as  high  as 
dates?" 

The  Doge's  speech  had  begun  incoherently,  but 
steadied  into  rallying  humor  at  the  close. 

"I  haven't  seen  the  date-tree  yet,"  said  Jack.  "Not 
until  I  have  can  I  judge  whether  or  not  I  shall  dare  to 
rival  the  lord  of  the  manor  in  his  own  specialty.  And 
there  are  business  details  which  I  must  settle  with 
you,  0  Doge  of  this  city  of  slender  canals!" 

"O  youth,  will  you  tarry  with  peace  between  wars?" 
answered  the  Doge,  in  quick  response  to  the  spirit  of 
nonsense  as  a  basis  for  their  new  relations.  "Come, 
and  I  will  show  you  our  noblest  product  of  peace,  the 
Date-Tree  Wonderful!"  he  said,  leading  the  way  to 
the  garden,  while  Mary  hurried  rather  precipitately 
into  the  house. 

Jasper  Ewold  was  at  his  best,  a  glowing  husband- 
man, when  he  pointed  aloft  to  the  clusters  of  fruit  pen- 


"HOW  FAST  YOU  SEW!"  127 

dent  from  the  crotches  of  the  stiff  branches,  enclosed 
in  cloth  bags  to  keep  them  free  of  insects. 

"Do  you  see  strange  lettering  on  the  cloth?"  he 
asked. 

"  Yes,  it  looks  like  Arabic." 

"So  it  is!  Among  other  futile  diversions  in  a  past 
incarnation  I  studied  Arabic  a  little,  and  I  still  have 
my  lexicon.  Perhaps  my  construction  might  not  please 
the  grammarians  of  classic  Bagdad,  but  the  sentiment 
is  there  safe  enough  in  the  language  of  the  mother 
romance  world  of  the  date:  'All  hail,  first-born  of  our 
Western  desert  fecundity!'  It  is  calling  out  to  the 
pass  and  the  range  from  the  wastes  where  the  sage- 
brush has  had  its  own  way  since  the  great  stir  that 
there  was  in  the  world  at  genesis." 

"  With  the  unlimited  authority  I  have  in  bestowing 
titles,"  said  Jack,  "I  have  a  mind  to  make  you  an  Emir. 
But  it's  a  pity  that  you  haven't  a  camel  squatting  under 
your  date-tree  and  placidly  chewing  his  cud." 

"A  tempting  thought!"  declared  the  Doge  unctu- 
ously. 

"Bob  Worther  could  ride  him  on  the  tours  of  in- 
spection. I  think  the  jounce  would  be  almost  as  good 
a  flesh-reducer  as  pedestrianism." 

"There  you  go!  You  would  have  the  camel  wear- 
ing bells,  with  reins  of  red  leather  and  a  purple  saddle- 
cloth hung  with  spangles,  and  Bob — our  excellent  Bob 
— in  a  turban!  Persiflage,  sir!  A  very  demoraliza- 
tion of  the  faculties  with  cataracts  of  verbiage,  sir!" 
declared  the  Doge  as  he  started  back  to  the  house. 
"Little  Rivers  is  a  practical  town,"  he  proceeded  seri- 
ously. "  We  indulge  in  nonsense  only  after  sunset  and 
when  a  stranger  appears  riding  a  horse  with  a  profane 


128  OVER  THE  PASS 

name.  Yes,  a  practical  town;  and  I  am  surprised  at 
your  disloyalty  to  your  own  burro  by  mentioning 
camels." 

"  It  rests  with  you,  I  believe,  to  let  me  have  the  land 
and  also  the  water,"  said  Jack. 

"We  grow  businesslike!"  returned  the  Doge  with 
a  change  of  manner. 

"Very!"  declared  Jack. 

"The  requirement  is  that  you  become  a  member  of 
the  water  users'  association  and  pay  your  quota  of 
taxes  per  acre  foot;  and  the  price  you  pay  for  your 
land  also  goes  to  the  association.  But  I  decide  on  the 
eligibility  of  the  applicant." 

They  were  in  front  of  the  house  by  this  time,  and 
again  the  Doge  gave  Jack  that  sharp,  quick,  knowing 
glance  of  scrutiny  through  his  heavy,  tufted  eyebrows, 
before  he  proceeded: 

"The  concession  for  the  use  of  the  river  for  irriga- 
tion is  mine,  administered  by  the  water  users'  associa- 
tion as  if  it  were  theirs,  under  the  condition  that  no 
one  who  has  not  my  approval  can  have  membership. 
That  is,  it  is  practically  mine,  owing  to  my  arrange- 
ment with  old  Mr.  Lefferts,  who  lives  upstream.  He 
is  an  eccentric,  a  hermit.  He  came  here  many  years 
ago  to  get  as  far  away  from  civilization  as  he  could, 
I  judge.  That  gives  him  an  underlying  right.  Orig- 
inally he  had  two  partners,  squaw  men.  Both  are 
dead.  He  had  made  no  improvements  beyond  draw- 
ing enough  water  for  a  garden  and  for  his  horse  and 
cow.  When  I  came  to  make  a  bargain  with  him  he 
named  an  annual  sum  which  should  keep  him  for  the 
rest  of  his  life;  and  thus  he  waived  his  rights.  First, 
Jim  Gahvay,  then  other  settlers  drifted  in.  I  formed 


"HOW  FAST  YOU  SEW!"  129 

the  water  users'  association.  All  taxes  and  sums  for 
the  sale  of  land  go  into  keeping  the  dam  and  ditches  in 
condition." 

"You  take  nothing  for  yourself!" 

"A  great  deal.  The  working  out  of  an  idea — an  idea 
in  moulding  a  little  community  in  my  old  age  in  a 
fashion  that  pleases  me;  while  my  own  property,  of 
course,  increases  in  value.  At'  my  death  the  rights  go 
to  the  community.  But  no  Utopia,  Sir  Chaps!  Just 
hard-working,  cheerful  men  and  women  in  a  safe  ref- 
uge!" 

"And  I  am  young!"  exclaimed  Jack,  with  a  hope- 
ful smile.  "I  have  good  health.  I  mean  to  work.  I 
try  to  be  cheerful.  Am  I  eligible?" 

"Sir  Chaps,  you — you  have  done  us  a  great  favor. 
Everybody  likes  you.  Sir  Chaps" — the  Doge  hesitated 
for  an  instant,  with  a  baffling,  unspoken  inquiry  in  his 
eyes — "  Sir  Chaps,  I  like  your  companionship  and  your 
mastery  of  persiflage.  Jim  Galway,  who  is  secretary 
of  the  association,  will  look  after  details  of  the  permit 
and  Bob  Worther  will  turn  the  water  on  your  land, 
and  the  whole  town  will  assist  you  with  advice!  Luck. 
Sir  Chaps,  in  your  new  vocation!" 

That  evening,  while  the  Doge  took  down  the  David 
and  set  a  fragment  from  the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon 
in  its  place,  Little  Rivers  talked  of  the  delightful  news 
that  it  was  not  to  lose  its  strange  story-teller  and  duel- 
ist. Little  Rivers  was  puzzled.  Not  once  had  Jack 
intimated  a  thought  of  staying.  By  his  own  account, 
so  far  as  he  had  given  any,  his  wound  had  merely  de- 
layed his  departure  to  New  York,  where  he  had  press- 
ing business.  He  had  his  reservation  on  the  Pullman 
made  for  the  morning  express;  he  had  paid  a  farewell 


130  OVER  THE  PASS 

call  at  the  Ewolds,  and  apparently  then  had  changed 
his  mind  and  his  career.  These  were  the  only  clues  to 
work  on,  except  the  one  suggested  by  Mrs.  Galway, 
who  was  the  wise  woman  of  the  community,  while  Mrs. 
Smith  was  the  propagandist. 

"I  guess  he  likes  the  way  Mary  Ewold  snubs  him!" 
said  Mrs.  Galway. 

But  there  was  one  person  in  town  who  was  not  sur- 
prised at  Jack's  decision.  When  Jack  sang  out  as  he 
entered  the  Galway  yard  on  returning  from  the  Doge's, 
"We  stay,  Firio,  we  stay!"  Firio  said:  "Si,  Seiior 
Jack!"  with  no  change  of  expression  except  a  brighter 
gleam  than  usual  in  his  velvety  eyes. 


XV 
WHEN  THE  DESERT  BLOOMS 

Perhaps  we  may  best  describe  this  as  a  chapter  of 
incidents;  or,  to  use  a  simile,  a  broad,  eddying  bend 
in  a  river  on  a  plateau,  with  cataracts  and  canyons 
awaiting  it  on  its  route  to  the  sea.  Or,  discarding  the 
simile  and  speaking  in  literal  terms,  in  a  search  for  a 
theme  on  which  to  hang  the  incidents,  we  revert  to 
Mary's  raillery  at  the  announcement  of  an  easy  travel- 
ler that  he  was  going  to  turn  sober  rancher. 

"You  plowing!  You  blistering  your  hands!  You 
earning  your  bread  by  the  sweat  of  your  brow!" 

But  there  he  was  in  blue  overalls,  sinking  his  spade 
deep  for  settings,  digging  ditches  and  driving  furrows 
through  the  virgin  soil,  while  the  masons  and  carpen- 
ters built  his  ranch  house. 

"They  are  straight  furrows,  too!"  Jack  declared. 

"Passably  so!"  answered  Mary. 

"And  look  at  the  blisters!"  he  continued,  exhibit- 
ing his  puffy  palms. 

"You  seem  to  think  blisters  a  remarkable  human 
phenomenon,  a  sensational  novelty  to  a  laboring  pop- 
ulation!" 

"Now,  would  you  advise  pricking?"  he  asked,  with 
deference  to  her  judgment. 

"It  is  so  critical  in  your  case  that  you  ought  to  con- 
sult a  doctor  rather  than  take  lay  advice." 

"Jim  Galway  says  that  the  thorough  way  I  mulched 
131 


132  OVER  THE  PASS 

my  soil  before  putting  in  my  first  crop  of  alfalfa  is  a 
model  for  all  future  settlers,"  he  ventured. 

She  remarked  that  Jim  was  always  encouraging  to 
new-comers,  and  remarked  this  in  a  way  that  implied 
that  some  new-comers  possibly  needed  hazing. 

"And  I  am  up  at  dawn  and  hard  at  it  for  six  hours 
before  midday." 

"Yes,  it  is  wonderful!"  she  admitted,  with  a  mock 
show  of  being  overwhelmingly  impressed.  "Nobody 
in  the  world  ever  worked  ten  hours  a  day  before!" 

"  I'm  doing  more  than  any  man  that  I  pay  two-fifty. 
I  do  perspire,  and  if  you  don't  call  that  earning  your 
bread  with  the  sweat  of  your  brow,  why  this  is  an  as- 
toundingly  illogical  world!" 

"There  is  a  great  difference  between  sporadic  dis- 
play and  that  continuity  which  is  the  final  proof  of 
efficiency,"  she  corrected  him. 

"Long,  involved  sentences  often  indicate  the  loss  of 
an  argument!"  declared  Jack. 

"There  isn't  any  argument!"  said  Mary  with  supe- 
rior disinterestedness. 

By  common  inspiration  they  had  established  a  truce 
of  nonsense.  She  still  called  him  Jack;  he  still  called 
her  Mary.  It  was  the  only  point  of  tacit  admission 
that  they  had  ever  met  before  he  asked  her  to  show  a 
prospective  settler  a  parcel  of  land. 

Their  new  relations  were  as  the  house  of  cards  of 
fellowship :  cards  of  glass,  iridescent  and  brittle,  mock- 
ing the  idea  that  there  could  be  oblivion  of  the  scene 
in  Lang's  store,  the  crack  of  Leddy's  pistol  in  the  arroyo, 
or  the  pulse  of  Jack's  artery  under  her  thumb!  She 
was  sure  that  he  could  forget  these  experiences,  even 
if  she  could  not.  That  was  his  character,  as  she  saw 


WHEN  THE  DESERT  BLOOMS         133 

it,  free  of  clinging  roots  of  yesterday's  events,  living 
some  new  part  every  day. 

In  the  house  of  cards  she  set  up  a  barrier,  which  he 
saw  as  a  veil  over  her  eyes.  Not  once  had  he  a  glimpse 
of  their  depths.  There  was  only  the  surface  gleam  of 
sunbeams  and  sometimes  of  rapier-points,  merry  but 
significant.  She  frequently  rode  out  to  the  pass  and 
occasionally,  when  his  day's  work  was  done,  he  would 
ride  to  the  foot  of  the  range  to  meet  her,  and  as  they 
came  back  he  often  sang,  but  never  whistled.  In- 
deed, he  had  ceased  to  whistle  altogether.  Perhaps  he 
regarded  the  omission  as  an  insurance  against  duels. 

Aside  from  nonsense  they  had  common  interests  in 
cultural  and  daily  life,  from  the  Eternal  Painter's 
brushwork  to  how  to  dress  a  salad.  She  did  extend  her 
approval  for  the  generous  space  which  he  was  allow- 
ing for  flower-beds,  and  advised  him  in  the  practical 
construction  of  his  kitchen;  while  the  Doge  decorated 
the  living-room  with  Delia  Robbias,  which,  however, 
never  arrived  at  the  express  office.  He  was  a  neigh- 
bor always  at  home  in  the  Ewold  house.  The  Doge 
revelled  in  their  disputations,  yet  never  was  really  in- 
timate or  affectionate  as  he  was  with  Jim  Galway,  who 
knew  not  the  Pitti,  the  Prado,  nor  the  Louvre,  and 
could  not  understand  the  intoning  of  Dante  in  the  orig- 
inal as  Jack  could,  thanks  to  his  having  been  brought 
up  in  libraries  and  galleries. 

The  town,  which  was  not  supposed  to  ask  about 
pasts,  could  not  help  puzzling  about  his.  What  was 
the  story  of  this  teller  of  stories?  The  secluded  little 
community  was  in  a  poor  way  to  find  out,  even  if  the 
conscientious  feeling  about  a  custom  had  not  been  a 
restraint  that  kept  wonder  free  from  inquiring  hints. 


134  OVER  THE  PASS 

They  took  him  for  what  he  was  in  all  their  personal 
relations;  that  was  the  delightful  way  of  Little  Rivers, 
which  inner  curiosity  might  not  alloy.  His  broader 
experience  of  that  world  over  the  pass  which  stretched 
around  the  globe  and  back  to  the  other  range-wall  of 
the  valley,  seemed  only  to  make  him  fall  more  easily 
into  the  simple  ways  of  the  fellow-ranchers  of  the  Doge's 
selection,  who  were  genuine,  hall-marked  people,  what- 
ever the  origin  from  which  the  individual  sprang. 
He  knew  the  fatigue  of  productive  labor  as  something 
far  sweeter  than  the  fatigue  that  comes  from  mere 
exercise,  and  the  neophyte's  enthusiasm  was  his. 

"I'm  sitting  at  the  outer  edge  of  the  circle,"  he  told 
Jim  Galway.  "But  when  my  first  crop  is  harvested 
I  shall  be  on  the  inside — a  real  rancher!" 

"You've  already  got  one  foot  over  the  circle,"  said 
Jim. 

"And  with  my  first  crop  of  dates  I'll  be  in  the  holy 
of  holies  of  pastoral  bliss!" 

"Yes,  I  should  say  so!"  Jim  responded,  but  in  a 
way  that  indicated  surprise  at  the  thought  of  Jack's 
remaining  in  Little  Rivers  long  enough  for  such  a  con- 
summation. 

When  his  alfalfa  covered  the  earth  with  a  green  car- 
pet Jack  was  under  a  spell  of  something  more  than  the 
never-ending  marvel  of  dry  seeds  springing  into  suc- 
culent abundance  without  the  waving  of  any  magic 
wand. 

"I  made  it  out  of  the  desert!"  he  cried.  "It  laughs 
in  triumph  at  the  bare  stretches  around  it,  waiting  on 
water!" 

"That  is  it,"  said  Jim;  "waiting  on  water!" 

"The  promise  of  what  might  come!" 


WHEN  THE  DESERT  BLOOMS         135 

"It  will  come!  Some  day,  Jack,  you  and  I  will  ride 
up  into  the  river  canyon  and  I  will  show  you  a  place 
where  you  can  see  the  blue  sky  between  precipitous 
walls  two  hundred  feet  high.  The  abyss  is  so  narrow 
you  can  throw  a  stone  across  it." 

"What  lies  beyond?"  asked  Jack,  his  eyes  lighting 
vividly. 

"A  great  basin  which  was  the  bed  of  an  ancient  lake 
before  the  water  wore  its  way  through." 

"A  dam  between  those  walls — and  you  have  another 
lake!" 

"Yes,  and  the  spring  freshets  from  the  northern 
water-shed  all  held  in  a  reservoir — none  going  to  waste! 
And,  Jack,  as  population  spreads  the  dam  must  come." 

"Why,  the  Doge  has  a  kingdom!" 

"Yes,  that's  the  best  of  it,  the  rights  being  in  his 
hands.  He  shares  up  with  everybody  and  we  get  it 
when  he  dies.  That's  why  we  are  ready  to  accept  the 
Doge's  sentiments  as  kind  of  gospel.  If  ornamental 
hedges  waste  water  and  bring  bugs  and  are  contrary 
to  practical  ranching  ideas,  why — well,  why  not?  It's 
our  Little  Rivers  to  enjoy  as  we  please.  We  aren't 
growing  so  fast,  but  we're  growing  in  a  clean,  beauti- 
ful way,  as  Jasper  Ewold  says.  What  if  that  river  was 
owned  by  one  man !  What  if  we  had  to  pay  the  price 
he  set  for  what  takes  the  place  of  rain,  as  they  do  in 
some  places  in  California?  We're  going  to  say  who 
shall  build  that  dam!" 

"Think  of  it!  Think  of  it!"  Jack  half  whispered, 
his  imagination  in  play.  "Plot  after  plot  being  added 
to  this  little  oasis  until  it  extends  from  range  to  range, 
one  sea  of  green!  Many  little  towns,  with  Little 
Rivers  the  mother  town,  spreading  its  ideas!  Yes, 


136  OVER  THE  PASS 

think  of  being  in  at  the  making  of  a  new  world,  seeing 
visions  develop  into  reality  as,  stone  by  stone,  an  edi- 
fice rises!  I — I — :)  Jack  paused,  a  cloud  sweeping 
over  his  features,  his  eyes  seeming  to  stare  at  a  wall. 
His  body  alone  seemed  in  Little  Rivers,  his  mind  on  the 
other  side  of  the  pass.  He  was  in  one  of  those  moods 
of  abstraction  that  ever  made  his  fellow-ranchers  feel 
that  he  would  not  be  with  them  permanently. 

Indeed,  he  had  whole  days  when  his  smile  had  a  sad 
turn;  when,  though  he  spoke  pleasantly,  the  inspira- 
tion of  talk  was  not  in  him  and  when  Belvy  Smith 
could  not  rouse  any  action  in  the  cat  with  two  black 
stripes  down  its  back.  But  many  Little  Riversites, 
including  the  Doge,  had  their  sad  days,  when  they 
looked  away  at  the  pass  oftener  than  usual,  as  if  seeing 
a  life-story  framed  in  the  V.  His  came  usually,  as 
Mrs.  Smith  observed,  when  he  had  a  letter  from  the 
East.  And  it  was  then  that  he  would  pretend  to  cough 
to  Firio.  These  mock  coughing  spells  were  one  of  the 
few  manifestations  that  made  the  impassive  Firio  laugh. 

"Now  you  know  I  am  not  well,  don't  you,  Firio?" 
he  would  ask,  wraggishly,  the  very  thought  seeming  to 
take  him  out  of  the  doldrums.  "I  could  never  live 
out  of  this  climate.  Why,  even  now  I  have  a  cough, 
kuh-er!" 

Firio  had  turned  a  stove  cook.  He  accepted  the 
humiliation  in  a  spirit  of  loyalty.  But  often  he  would 
go  out  among  the  sagebrush  and  return  with  a  feathery 
tribute,  which  he  would  broil  on  a  spit  in  a  fire  made 
in  the  yard.  Always  when  Jack  rode  out  to  meet  Mary 
at  the  foot  of  the  range,  Firio  would  follow;  and  always 
he  had  his  rifle.  For  it  was  part  of  Jack's  seeming  in- 
consistency, emphasizing  his  inscrutability,  that  he 


WHEN  THE  DESERT  BLOOMS         137 

would  never  wear  his  revolver.     It  hung  beside  Pete's 

on  the  wall  of  the  living-room  as  a  second  relic.     Far 

from  being  a  quarrel-maker,  he  was  peaceful  to  the 

point  of  Quakerish  predilection. 

"Nobody  ever  hears  anything  of  Leddy,"  said  Jim; 

"but  he  will  never  forget  or  forgive,  and  one  day  he 

will  show  up  unexpectedly." 
"Not  armed!"  said  Jack. 
"Do  you  think  he  will  keep  his  word?" 
"  I  know  he  will.    I  asked  him  and  he  said  he  would." 
"You're  very  simple,  Jack.    But  mind,  he  can  keep 

his  word  and  still  use  a  gun  outside  the  town!" 

"So  he  might!"  admitted  Jack,  laughing  in  a  way 

that  indicated  that  the  subject  was  distasteful  to  him; 

for  he  would  never  talk  of  the  duel. 

Now  we  come  to  that  little  affair  of  Pedro  Nogales. 
Pedro  was  a  half-breed,  whose  God  among  men  was 
Pete  Leddy  no  less  than  Jack  was  Firio's  and  the  Doge 
was  Ignacio's.  In  his  shanty  back  of  Bill  Lang's  the 
Mexicans  and  Indians  lost  their  remaining  wages  in 
gambling  after  he  had  filled  them  with  mescal.  It 
happened  that  Gonzalez,  head  man  of  the  laborers 
under  Bob  Worther,  who  had  saved  quite  a  sum,  came 
away  penniless  after  taking  but  one  drink.  Every 
ounce  of  Bob's  avoirdupois  was  in  a  rage. 

"It's  time  we  cleaned  out  Pedro's  place,  seh!"  he 
told  Jack;  "and  you  and  Jim  Gal  way  have  got  to  help 
me  do  it!" 

"I  don't  like  to  get  into  a  row,"  said  Jack  very  so- 
berly. 

"Then  I'll  undertake  the  job  alone,"  Bob  retorted. 
"That  will  be  a  good  deal  worse,  for  when  I  get  going 


138  OVER  THE  PASS 

I  lose  my  temper  and  I  tell  you,  seh,  I've  got  a  lot  to 
lose!  And,  Jack,  are  you  going  to  stand  by  and  see 
robbery  done  by  the  meanest,  most  worthless  greaser 
in  the  valley — and  a  good  Indian  the  victim?" 

"Yes,  Jack,"  said  Jim,  "you've  got  such  a  formid- 
able reputation  since  your  set-to  with  Leddy  that  the 
Indians  think  you  are  a  regular  master  of  magic. 
You're  just  the  one  to  make  Pedro  come  to  terms." 
i  "A  formidable  reputation  without  firing  a  shot!" 
admitted  Jack  quizzically,  and  consented. 

"You'll  surely  want  your  gun  this  time!"  Bob 
warned  him. 

"No,"  said  Jack. 

"But " 

"I  have  hung  up  my  gun!"  Jack  said  decisively. 
"We'll  try  to  handle  this  peacefully.  Come  on!" 

"Well,  we've  got  our  guns,  anyway!"  Jim  put  in. 
i  It  was  mid-afternoon,  a  slack  hour  for  Pedro's  kind 
of  trade,  and  the  shanty  was  empt}r  of  customers  when 
the  impromptu  vigilance  committee  entered.  Pedro 
himself  was  half  dozing  in  the  faro  dealer's  chair.  His 
small,  ferret  eyes  flashed  a  spark  at  the  visitors  as  he 
rose,  but  he  was  politeness  itself. 

"Senores!  It  is  great  honor!  Be  seated,  senores!" 
he  said  with  eloquent  deference. 

The  very  sight  of  him  set  all  the  ounces  in  Bob 
quivering  in  an  outburst: 

"  No  chairs  for  us !  You  fork  over  Gonzalez's  money 
that  you  tricked  out  of  him!" 

"I  take  Gonzalez's  money!    I?    Senores?" 

"It's  a  hundred  and  twenty  dollars  that  he  earned 
honestly,  and  the  quicker  you  lay  your  hands  on  it 
the  better  for  you!"  Bob  roared  back. 


WHEN  THE  DESERT  BLOOMS         139 

Pedro  was  quite  impassive. 

"Senores,  if  Gonzalez  need  money — senores,  I  hon- 
est man!  Senores,  sit  down!  We  talk!"  Pedro 
dropped  back  into  his  chair  and  his  hand,  with  cat-like 
quickness,  shot  under  the  faro  table. 

Jack  had  come  through  the  door  after  Jim  and  Bob. 
He  was  standing  a  little  behind  them,  and  while  they 
had  been  watching  Pedro's  face  he  had  watched  Pedro's 
movements. 

"Pedro,  take  your  hand  out  from  under  the  table 
and  without  your  gun!"  said  Jack;  and  Jim  Gal  way 
caught  a  thrill  in  Jack's  voice  that  he  had  heard  in  the 
arroyo. 

Pedro  looked  into  Senor  Don't  Care's  eyes  and  saw 
a  bead,  though  they  were  not  looking  along  the  glint 
of  a  revolver  barrel. 

"Si,  senor!"  said  Pedro,  settling  back  in  the  chair 
with  palms  out  in  intimation  of  his  pacific  intentions. 

"Now,  Pedro,  you  have  Gonzalez's  money,  haven't 
you?"  Jack  went  on,  in  the  reasoning  fashion  that 
he  had  adopted  to  Leddy  in  the  store.  "And  you 
aren't  going  to  make  yourself  or  Bob  trouble.  You 
are  going  to  give  it  back!" 

"Si,  senor!"  said  Pedro  wincing. 

While  he  was  producing  the  money  and  counting  it, 
his  furtive  glance  kept  watch  of  Jack.  Then,  as  the 
committee  turned  to  go,  he  suddenly  exclaimed  with 
angry  surprise  and  disillusion: 

"You  got  no  gun!" 

While  Jim  and  Bob  waited  for  Jack  to  precede  them 
out  of  the  door  Jim  had  time  to  note  Pedro's  baleful, 
piercing  look  at  Jack's  back. 

"Just  as  I  told  you,  Jack — and  I  reckon  you  saved 


140  OVER  THE  PASS 

a  big  row.  You  just  put  a  scare  into  that  hellion  with 
a  word,  like  you  had  a  thousand  devils  in  you!"  said 
Jim. 

"It's  all  over!"  Jack  answered,  looking  more  hurt 
than  pleased  over  the  congratulations.  "Very  for- 
tunately over." 

"But,"  Jim  observed,  tensely,  "Pedro  is  not  only 
Leddy's  bitter  partisan  and  ready  to  do  his  bidding, 
Pedro's  a  bit  loco,  besides — the  kind  that  hesitates  at 
nothing  when  he  gets  a  grudge.  You've  got  to  look 
out  for  him." 

"Oh,  no!"  said  Jack,  in  the  full  swing  of  a  Senor 
Don't  Care  mood. 

Jim  and  Bob  began  to  entertain  the  feelings  of  Mary 
on  the  pass,  when  she  thought  of  Jack  as  walking  over 
precipices  regardless  of  danger  signs.  After  all,  did  he 
really  know  how  to  shoot?  If  he  would  not  look  after 
himself,  it  was  their  duty  to  look  after  him.  Jim  sug- 
gested that  the  rule  which  Jack  had  made  for  Leddy 
should  have  universal  application.  No  one  whosoever 
should  wear  arms  in  Little  Rivers  without  a  permit. 
The  new  ordinance  had  the  Doge's  approval;  and  Jim 
and  Bob,  both  of  whom  had  permits,  kept  watch  that 
it  was  enforced,  particularly  in  the  case  of  Pedro  No- 
gales. 

Meanwhile,  Jack  kept  the  ten-hour-a-day  law.  His 
alfalfa  was  growing  with  prolific  rapidity,  but  Firio 
had  the  air  of  one  who  waits  between  journeys. 

"Never  the  trail  again?"  he  asked  temptingly,  one 
day. 

"Never  the  trail  again!"  Jack  declared  firmly. 

"Si,  si,  si — the  trail  again!" 


WHEN  THE  DESERT  BLOOMS         141 

"You  think  so?    Then  why  do  you  ask? " 
"To  make  a  question,"  answered  Firio.     "The  big 
sadness  will  be  too  strong.    It  will  make  you  move — 

at" 

"The  big  sadness!"    Jack  exclaimed.    He  seized 

Firio  by  the  shoulders  and  looked  narrowly  at  him, 

'  and  Firio  met  the  gaze  with  soft,  puzzling  lights  in  his 

eyes.     "Ho!  ho!  A  big  sadness  I    How  do  you  know?  " 

he  laughed. 

"I  learn  on  the  trail  when  I  watch  you  look  at  the 
stars.  And  Senorita  Ewold,  she  know;  but  she  think 
the  big  sadness  a  devil.  She — "  and  he  paused. 

"She— yes?"  Jack  asked. 

"She—"  Firio  started  again. 

Jack  suddenly  raised  his  hands  from  Firio 's  shoul- 
ders in  a  gesture  of  interruption.  It  was  not  exactly 
Firio's  place  to  hazard  opinions  about  Mary  Ewold. 

"Never  mind!"  he  said,  rather  sharply. 

But  Firio  proceeded  fixedly  to  finish  what  he  had  to 
say. 

"She  has  a  big  sadness,  which  makes  her  ride  to  the 
pass.  She  rides  out  so  she  can  ride  back  smiling." 

"Firio,  don't  mistake  your  imagination  for  divina- 
tion!" Jack  warned  him. 

As  Firio  did  not  understand  the  meaning  of  this  he 
said  nothing.  Probably  he  would  have  said  nothing- 
even  if  he  had  understood. 

"I'll  show  you  the  nature  of  the  big  sadness  and  that 
the  devil  is  a  joy  devil  when  we  harvest  our  first  crop 
of  alfalfa,"  Jack  concluded.  "Then  I  shall  make  a 
holiday!  Then  I  shall  be  a  real  rancher  and  something 
is  going  to  happpen!" 

"The  trail!"    exclaimed  Firio,  and  the  soft  light  in 


142  OVER  THE  PASS 

his  eyes  flashed.  "Si!  The  trail  and  the  big  spurs 
and  the  revolver  in  the  holster!" 

"No!" 

But  Firio  said  "Si!"  with  the  supreme  confidence  of 
one  who  holds  that  belief  in  fulfilment  will  make  any 
wish  come  true. 


XVI 
A  CHANGE  OF  MIND 

It  was  Sunday  afternoon;  or,  to  date  it  by  an  epochal 
event,  the  day  after  Jack's  alfalfa  crop  had  fallen  be- 
fore the  mower.  Mary  was  seated  on  the  bench  under 
the  avenue  of  umbrella-trees  reading  a  thin  edition  of 
Marcus  Aurelius  bound  in  flexible  leather.  Of  late  she 
had  developed  a  fondness  for  the  more  austere  phi- 
losophers. Jack,  whose  mood  was  entirely  to  the  son- 
neteers, came  softly  singing  down  the  avenue  of  palms 
and  presented  himself  before  her  in  a  romping  spirit 
of  interruption. 

"O  expert  in  floriculture!"  he  said,  "the  humble 
pupil  acting  as  a  Committee  of  One  has  failed  utterly 
to  agree  with  himself  as  to  the  form  of  his  new  flower- 
bed. There  must  be  a  Committee  of  Two.  Will  you 
come?" 

"  Good !  I  am  weary  of  Marcus.  I  can't  help  think- 
ing that  he  too  far  antedates  the  Bordeaux  mixture!" 
she  answered,  springing  to  her  feet  with  positive  en- 
thusiasm. 

He  rarely  met  positive  enthusiasm  in  her  and  every- 
thing in  him  called  for  it  at  the  moment.  He  found  it 
so  inspiring  that  the  problem  of  the  bed  was  settled 
easily  by  his  consent  to  all  her  suggestions — a  too- 
ready  consent,  she  told  herself. 

"After  all,  it  is  your  flower  garden,"  she  reminded 
him. 

143 


144  OVER  THE  PASS 

"No,  every  flower  garden  in  Little  Rivers  is  yours!" 
he  declared. 

The  way  he  said  this  made  her  frown.  She  saw  him 
taking  a  step  on  the  other  side  of  that  barrier  over 
which  she  mounted  guard. 

"Never  make  your  hyperboles  felonious!"  she 
warned  him.  "Besides,  if  you  are  going  to  be  a  real 
Little  Riversite  you  should  have  opinions  of  your  own." 

"I  haven't  any  to-day — none  except  victory!"  and 
he  held  out  his  palms,  exhibiting  their  yellowish  plates. 
"Look!  Even  corns  on  the  joints!" 

"Yes,  they  look  quite  real,"  she  admitted,  cen- 
soriously. 

"Haven't  I  made  good?  Do  you  remember  how 
you  stood  here  on  the  very  site  of  my  house  and  lec- 
tured me?  I  would  not  work!  I  would  not — 

"You  have  worked  a  little — a  little!"  she  said 
grudgingly,  and  showed  him  as  much  of  the  wondrous 
sparkle  in  her  eyes  as  he  could  see  out  of  the  corners 
between  the  lashes.  She  never  allowed  him  to  look 
into  her  eyes  if  she  apprehended  any  attempt  to  cross 
the  barrier.  But  she  could  see  well  enough  out  of  the 
corners  to  know  that  his  glances  had  a  kind  of  hungry 
joy  and  a  promise  of  some  new  demonstration  in  his 
attitude  toward  her.  She  must  watch  that  barrier 
very  shrewdly. 

"Look  at  my  hedge!"  he  went  on.  "It  is  knee- 
high  already,  and  my  umbrella-trees  cast  enough  shade 
for  anybody,  if  he  will  wrap  himself  around  the  trunk. 
But  such  things  are  ornamental.  I  have  a  more  prac- 
tical appeal.  Come  on!" 

His  elation  was  insistent,  superior  to  any  prickling 
gibes  of  banter,  as  they  walked  on  the  mealy  earth  be- 


A  CHANGE  OF  MIND  145 

tween  rows  of  young  orange  settings,  and  the  sweet 
odor  of  drying  alfalfa  came  to  their  nostrils,  borne  by 
a  vagrant  breeze.  He  swept  his  hand  toward  the  field 
in  a  gesture  of  pride,  his  shoulders  thrown  back  in  a 
deep  breath  of  exultation. 

"The  callouses  win!"  And  he  exhibited  them  again. 

But  she  refused  even  to  glance  at  them  this  time. 

"You  seem  to  think  callouses  phenomenal.  Most 
people  in  Little  Rivers  accept  them  as  they  do  the 
noses  on  their  faces." 

"They  certainly  are  phenomenal  on  me.  So  is  my 
first  crop!  My  first  crop!  I'll  be  up  at  dawn  to  stack 
it — and  then  I'm  no  longer  a  neophyte.  I  am  an  in- 
itiate! I'm  a  real  rancher!  A  holiday  is  due !  I  cele- 
brate!" 

He  was  rhapsodic  and  he  was  serious,  too.  She  was 
provokingly  flippant  as  an  antidote  for  Marcus  Aure- 
lius,  whom  she  was  still  carrying  in  the  little  flexible 
leather  volume. 

"How  celebrate?"  she  inquired.  "By  walking 
through  the  town  with  a  wisp  of  alfalfa  in  one  hand  and 
exhibiting  the  callouses  on  the  other?  or  will  you  be 
drawn  on  a  float  by  Jag  Ear — a  float  labeled,  'The 
Idler  Enjoying  His  Own  Reform?'  We'll  all  turn  out 
and  cheer." 

"Amusing,  but  not  dignified  and  not  to  my  taste. 
No!  I  shall  celebrate  by  a  terrific  spree — a  ride  to 
the  pass!" 

He  turned  his  face  toward  the  range,  earnest  in  its 
transfixion  and  suffused  with  the  spirit  of  restlessness 
and  the  call  of  the  mighty  rock  masses,  gray  in  their 
great  ribs  and  purple  in  their  abysses.  She  felt  that 
dame  call  as  something  fluid  and  electric  running  through 


146  OVER  THE  PASS 

the  air  from  sky  to  earth,  and  set  her  lips  in  readiness 
for  whatever  folly  he  was  about  to  suggest. 

"A  ride  to  the  pass  and  a  view  of  the  sunset  from 
the  very  top!"  he  cried.  He  looked  down  at  her 
quickly,  and  all  the  force  of  the  call  he  had  transformed 
into  a  sunny,  personal  appeal,  which  made  her  avert 
her  glance.  "My  day  in  the  country — my  holiday,  if 
you  will  go  with  me!  Will  you,  and  gaze  out  over  that 
spot  of  green  in  the  glare  of  the  desert,  knowing  that 
a  little  of  it  is  mine?" 

"Your  orange-trees  are  too  young.  It's  so  far  away 
they  will  hardly  show,"  she  ventured,  surveying  the 
distance  to  the  pass  judicially. 

"Will  you?" 

"Why,  to  me  a  ride  to  the  pass  is  not  a  thing  to  be 
planned  a  day  beforehand,"  she  said  deliberately,  still 
studiously  observing  Galena.  "It  is  a  matter  of 
momentary  inspiration.  Make  it  a  set  engagement 
and  it  is  but  a  plodding  journey.  I  can  best  tell  in 
the  morning,"  she  concluded.  "And,  by  the  way,  I 
see  you  haven't  yet  tried  grafting  plums  on  the  alfalfa 
stalks." 

"No.  I  have  learned  better.  It  is  not  consistent. 
You  see,  you  mow  alfalfa  and  you  pick  plums." 

This  return  to  drollery,  in  keeping  with  the  pre- 
scribed order  of  their  relations,  made  her  look  up  in 
candid  amusement  over  the  barrier  which  for  a  moment 
he  had  been  endangering. 

"Honestly,  Jack,  you  do  improve,"  she  said,  with 
mock  encouragement.  "You  seem  to  have  mastered 
a  number  of  the  simple  truths  of  age-old  agricultural 
experience." 

"But  will  you?    Will  you  ride  to  the  pass?" 


A  CHANGE  OF  MIND  147 

He  had  the  question  launched  fairly  into  her  eyes. 
She  could  not  escape  it.  He  saw  one  bright  flash, 
whether  of  real  anger  or  simply  vexation  at  his  rever- 
sion to  the  theme  he  could  not  tell,  and  her  lashes 
dropped;  she  ran  the  leaf  edges  of  the  austere  Marcus 
back  and  forth  in  her  fingers,  thip-thip-thip.  That 
was  the  only  sound  for  some  seconds,  very  long  seconds. 

"As  I've  already  tried  to  make  clear  to  you,  it's  such 
a  businesslike  thing  to  ride  to  the  pass  unless  you  have 
the  inspiration,"  she  remarked  thoughtfully  to  Mar- 
cus. "Perhaps  I  shall  get  the  inspiration  on  the  way 
back  to  the  house;"  which  was  a  signal  that  she  was 
going.  "And,  by  the  way,  Jack,  to  return  to  the  ob- 
ject of  my  coming,  if  you  have  ideas  of  your  own  about 
flowers  incorporate  them;  that  is  the  way  to  develop 
your  floricultural  talent." 

She  turned  away,  but  he  followed.  He  was  at  her 
side  and  proceeding  with  her,  his  head  bent  toward 
her,  boyishly,  eagerly. 

"You  see,  I  have  never  been  out  to  the  pass,"  he 
remarked  urgently. 

"  What !    You — "  she  started  in  surprise  and  checked 
herself, 
i     "Didn't  I  come  by  train?"  he  asked  reprovingly. 

"No!"  she  answered.  Her  eyes  were  level  with  the 
road,  her  voice  was  a  little  unnatural.  "No!  You 
came  over  the  pass,  Jack." 

It  was  the  first  time  in  the  months  of  his  citizenship 
of  Little  Rivers  that  she  had  ever  hinted  anything  but 
belief  in  the  fiction  that  they  had  first  met  when  he 
asked  her  to  show  him  a  parcel  of  land.  She  seemed 
to  be  calling  a  truth  out  of  the  past  and  grappling  with 
it,  while  her  lips  tightened  and  she  drew  in  her  chin. 


148  OVER  THE  PASS 

"Then  I  did  come  over  the  pass,"  he  agreed;  and 
after  a  pause  added:  "But  there  was  no  Pete  Leddy." 

"Yes,  oh,  yes— there  was  a  Pete  Leddy!" 

"But  he  will  not  be  there  this  time!" 

And  now  his  voice,  in  a  transport  that  seemed  to 
touch  the  cloud  heights,  was  neither  like  the  voice  of 
the  easy  traveller  on  the  pass,  nor  the  voice  of  his  sharp 
call  to  Leddy  to  disarm,  nor  the  voice  of  the  story- 
teller. It  had  a  new  note,  a  note  startling  to  her. 

"We  shall  be  on  the  pass  without  Leddy  and  smiling 
over  Leddy  and  thanking  him  for  his  unwitting  ser- 
vice in  making  me  stop  in  Little  Rivers,"  he  concluded. 

"Yes,  he  did  that,"  she  admitted  stoically,  as  if  it 
were  some  oppressive  fact  for  which  she  could  offer  no 
thanks. 

"I  want  to  see  our  ponies  with  their  bridles  hanging 
loose!  I  want  the  great  silence!  I  want  company, 
with  imagination  speaking  from  the  sky  and  reality 
speaking  from  the  patch  of  green  out  on  the  sea  of 
gray!  Will  you?" 

Their  steps  ran  rhythmically  together.  His  look 
was  eager  in  anticipation,  while  she  kept  on  running 
the  leaves  of  the  austere  Marcus  through  her  fingers. 
Her  lips  were  half  open,  as  if  about  to  speak,  but  were 
without  words;  the  thin,  delicate  nostrils  trembled. 

"Will  you?  Will  you,  because  I  kept  the  faith  of 
callouses?  Will  you  go  forth  and  dream  for  a  day? 
We'll  tell  fairy  stories!  We'll  get  a  pole  and  prod  the 
dinosaur  through  the  narrow  part  of  the  pass  and  hear 
him  roar  his  awfullest.  Will  you?" 

Her  fingers  paused  in  the  pages  as  if  they  had  found 
a  helpful  passage.  The  chin  tilted  upward  resolutely 
and  he  had  a  full  view  of  her  eyes,  dancing  with  chal- 


A  CHANGE  OF  MIND  149 

lenging  lights.  She  was  augustly,  gloriously  mis- 
chievous. 

"  Will  you  go  in  costume?  Will  you  wear  your  spurs 
and  the  chaps  and  the  silk  shirt?" 

The  question  said  that  it  was  not  a  time  to  be  serious. 
It  sprinkled  the  crest  of  the  barrier  with  gleaming 
slivers  of  glass,  which  might  give  zest  to  words  spoken 
across  it,  but  would  be  most  sharp  to  the  touch. 

"  I  will  wear  my  spurs  around  my  wrists,  if  you  say, 
tie  roses  in  the  fringe  of  my  chaps,  bind  my  hat  with 
a  big  red  silk  bandanna,  and  put  streamers  on  P.  D.'s 
bits!" 

"That  is  too  enticing  for  refusal,"  she  answered, 
playfully.  "I  particularly  want  to  hear  the  dinosaur 
roar." 

They  had  come  to  the  opening  of  the  Ewold  hedge, 
and  they  paused  to  consider  arrangements.  There  was 
no  one  in  sight  on  the  street  except  Jim  Galway,  who 
was  approaching  at  some  distance. 

"Shall  we  start  in  the  morning  and  have  luncheon 
at  the  foot  of  the  range?"  suggested  Jack. 

She  favored  an  early  afternoon  start;  he  argued  for 
his  point  of  view,  and  in  their  preoccupation  with  the 
passage  of  arms  they  did  not  notice  Pedro  Nogales 
slipping  along  beside  the  hedge  with  soft  steps,  his  hand 
under  his  jacket.  A  gleam  out  of  the  bosom  of  Pedro's 
jacket,  a  cry  from  Mary,  and  a  knife  flashed  upward 
and  drove  toward  Jack's  neck. 

Jack  had  seemed  oblivious  of  his  surroundings,  his 
gaze  centered  on  Mary.  Yet  he  was  able  to  duck  back- 
ward so  that  the  blade  only  slit  open  his  shirt  as  Pedro, 
with  the  misdirected  force  of  his  blow,  lunged  past  its 
object.  Mary  saw  that  face  which  had  been  laughing 


150  OVER  THE  PASS 

into  hers,  which  had  been  so  close  to  hers  in  its  per- 
sistent smile  of  persuasion,  struck  white  and  rigid  and 
a  glint  like  that  of  the  blade  itself  in  the  eyes.  In  a 
breath  Jack  had  become  another  being  of  incarnate, 
unthinking  physical  power  and  swiftness.  One  hand 
seized  Pedro's  wrist,  the  other  his  upper  arm,  and  Mary 
heard  the  metallic  click  of  the  knife  as  it  struck  the 
earth  and  the  sickening  sound  of  the  bone  of  Pedro's 
forearm  cracking.  She  saw  Pedro's  eyes  bursting  from 
their  sockets  in  pain  and  fear;  she  saw  Jack's  still  pro- 
file of  unyielding  will  and  the  set  muscles  of  his  neck 
and  the  knitting  muscles  of  his  forearm  driving  Pedro 
over  against  the  hedge,  as  if  bent  on  breaking  the  Mexi- 
can's back  in  two,  and  she  waited  in  frozen  appre- 
hension to  hear  another  bone  crack,  even  expecting 
Pedro's  death  cry. 

"The  devil  is  out  of  Senor  Don't  Care!"  It  was  the 
voice  of  Ignacio,  who  had  come  around  the  house  in 
time  to  witness  the  scene. 

"What  fearful  strength!  You  will  kill  him!"  It 
was  the  voice  of  the  Doge,  from  the  porch. 

"Yes,  please  stop!"   Mary  pleaded. 

Suddenly,  at  the  sound  of  her  cry,  Jack  released  his 
hold.  The  strong  column  of  his  neck  became  appar- 
ently too  weak  to  hold  the  weight  of  his  head.  Inert, 
he  fell  against  the  hedge  for  support,  his  hands  hanging 
limp  at  his  side,  while  he  stared  dazedly  into  space. 
It  seemed  then  that  Pedro  might  have  picked  up  the 
knife  and  carried  out  his  plan  of  murder  without  de- 
fence by  the  victim. 

"Yes,  yes,  yes!"  Jack  repeated. 

Pedro  had  not  moved  from  the  hollow  in  the  hedge 
which  the  impress  of  his  body  had  made.  He  was 


A  CHANGE  OF  MIND  151 

trembling,  his  lips  had  fallen  away  from  his  teeth, 
and  he  watched  Jack  in  stricken  horror,  a  beaten  crea- 
ture waiting  on  some  judgment  from  which  there  was 
no  appeal. 

"We'll  tell  fairy  stories  "—Jack's  soft  tones  of  per- 
suasion repeated  themselves  in  Mary's  ears  in  con- 
trast to  the  effect  of  what  she  had  just  witnessed.  Her 
hand  slipped  along  the  crest  of  the  hedge,  as  if  to 
steady  herself. 

"I'll  change  my  mind  about  going  to  the  pass,  Jack," 
she  said. 

"Yes,  Mary,"  he  answered  in  a  faint  tone. 

He  looked  around  to  see  her  back  as  she  turned  away 
from  him;  then,  with  an  effort,  he  stepped  free  of  the 
hedge. 

"Come,  we  will  go  to  the  doctor!"  he  said  to  the 
Mexican. 

He  touched  Pedro's  shoulder  softly  and  softly  ran 
his  hand  down  the  sleeve  in  which  the  arm  hung  limp. 
Pedro  had  not  moved;  he  still  leaned  against  the  hedge 
inanimate  as  a  mannikin. 

"Come!  Your  legs  are  not  broken!  You  can 
walk!"  said  Jim  Gal  way,  who  had  come  up  in  a  hurry 
when  he  saw  what  was  happening. 

"Pedro,  you  will  learn  not  to  play  with  the  devil 
in  Seiior  Don't  Care!"  whispered  Ignacio,  while 
Mary  had  disappeared  in  the  house  and  the  Doge  stood 
watching. 

Jack  had  stroked  Pedro's  head  while  the  bone  was 
being  set.  He  had  arranged  for  Pedro's  care.  And 
now  he  was  in  his  own  yard  with  Jag  Ear  and  the 
ponies,  rubbing  their  muzzles  alternately  in  silent  im- 


152  OVER  THE  PASS 

partiality,  his  head  bowed  reflectively  as  Firio  came 
around  the  corner  of  the  house.  At  first  he  half  stared 
at  Firio,  then  he  surveyed  the  steeds  of  his  long  jour- 
neyings  in  questioning  uncertainty,  and  then  looked 
back  at  Firio,  smiling  wanly. 

"Firio,"  he  said,  "I  feel  that  I  am  a  pretty  big 
coward.  Firio,  I  am  full  up — full  to  overflowing. 
My  mind  is  stuffed  with  cobwebs.  I — I  must  think 
things  out.  I  must  have  the  solitudes." 

"The  trail!"  prescribed  Doctor  Firio. 

After  Jack  had  given  his  ranch  in  charge  to  Galway, 
he  rode  away  in  the  dusk,  not  by  the  main  street,  but 
straight  across"  the  levels  toward  the  pass. 


XVII 
THE  DOGE  SNAPS  A  RUBBER  BAND 

Jasper  Ewold  was  a  disciple  of  an  old-fashioned  cus- 
tom that  has  fallen  into  disuse  since  the  multiplicity 
of  typewriters  made  writing  for  one's  own  pleasure  too 
arduous;  or,  if  you  will  have  another  reason,  since  our 
existence  and  feelings  have  become  so  complex  that  we 
can  no  longer  express  them  with  the  simple  directness 
of  our  ancestors.  He  kept  a  diary  with  what  he  called 
a  perfect  regularity  of  intermittency.  A  week  might 
pass  without  his  writing  a  single  word,  and  again  he 
might  indulge  freely  for  a  dozen  nights  running.  He 
wrote  as  much  or  as  little  as  he  pleased.  He  wrote 
when  he  had  something  to  tell  and  when  he  was  in  the 
mood  to  tell  it. 

"It  is  facing  yourself  in  your  own  ink,"  he  said. 
"It  is  confessing  that  you  are  an  egoist  and  providing 
an  antidote  for  your  egoism.  Firstly,  you  will  never 
be  bored  by  your  own  past  if  you  can  appreciate  your 
errors  and  inconsistencies.  Secondly,  you  will  never 
be  tempted  to  bore  others  with  your  past  as  long  as 
you  wish  to  pose  as  a  wise  man." 

He  must  have  found,  as  you  would  find  if  you  had 
left  youth  behind  and  could  see  yourself  in  your  own 
ink,  that  the  first  tracery  of  any  controlling  factor  in 
your  life  was  faint  and  inconsequential  to  you  at  the 
time,  without  presage  of  its  importance  until  you  saw 
other  lines,  also  faint  and  inconsequential  in  their  be- 
153 


154  OVER  THE  PASS 

ginnings,  drawing  in  toward  it  to  form  a  powerful 
current. 

On  the  evening  that  Jack  took  to  the  trail  again, 
Jasper  Ewold  had  a  number  of  thick  notebooks  out  of 
the  box  in  the  library  which  he  always  kept  locked,  and 
placed  them  on  the  living-room  table  beside  his  easy 
chair,  in  which  he  settled  himself.  Mary  was  sewing 
while  he  pored  over  his  life  in  review  as  written  by  his 
own  hand.  Her  knowledge  of  the  secrets  of  that 
chronicle  from  wrandering  student  days  to  desert  exile 
was  limited  to  glimpses  of  the  close  lines  of  fine-written 
pages  across  the  breadth  of  the  circle  of  the  lamp's  re- 
flection. He  surrounded  his  diary  with  a  line  of  mys- 
tery which  she  never  attempted  to  cross.  On  occa- 
sions he  would  read  to  her  certain  portions  which 
struck  his  recollection  happily;  but  these  were  in- 
variably limited  to  his  impressions  of  some  city  or 
some  work  of  art  that  he  was  seeing  for  the  first  time 
in  the  geniality  of  the  unadulterated  joy  of  living  in 
what  she  guessed  was  the  period  of  youth  before  she 
was  born;  and  never  did  they  throw  any  light  on  his 
story  except  that  of  his  views  as  a  traveller  and  a  per- 
sonality. But  he  did  not  break  out  into  a  single 
quotation  to-night.  It  seemed  as  if  he  were  following 
the  thread  of  some  reference  from  year  to  year;  for 
he  ran  his  fingers  through  the  leaves  of  certain  parts 
hastily  and  became  studiously  intense  at  other  parts  as 
he  gloomily  pondered  over  them. 

Neither  she  nor  her  father  had  mentioned  Jack  since 
the  scene  by  the  hedge.  This  was  entirely  in  keeping 
with  custom.  It  seemed  a  matter  of  instinct  with  both 
that  they  never  talked  to  each  other  of  him.  Yet  she 
was  conscious  that  he  had  been  in  her  father's  mind  all 


THE  DOGE  SNAPS  A  RUBBER  BAND    155 

through  the  evening  meal,  and  she  was  equally  cer- 
tain that  her  father  realized  that  he  was  in  her  mind. 

It  was  late  when  the  Doge  finished  his  reading,  and 
he  finished  it  with  the  page  of  the  last  book,  where 
the  fine  handwriting  stopped  at  the  edge  of  the  blank 
white  space  of  the  future.  An  old  desire,  ever  strong 
with  Mary,  which  she  had  never  quite  had  the  temerity 
to  express,  had  become  impelling  under  the  influence 
of  her  father's  unusually  long  and  silent  preoccupation. 

"Am  I  never  to  have  a  glimpse  of  that  treasure? 
Am  I  never,  never  to  read  your  diary?"  she  asked. 

The  Doge  drew  his  tufted  eyebrows  together  in  ut- 
ter astonishment. 

"What!  What,  Mary!  Why,  Mary,  I  might  preach 
a  lesson  on  the  folly  of  feminine  curiosity.  Do  you 
think  I  would  ask  to  see  your  diary?" 

"But  I  don't  keep  one." 

"  Hoo-hoo-hoo ! "  The  Doge  was  blowing  out  his 
lips  in  an  ado  of  deprecatory  nonsense.  "Don't  keep 
one?  Have  you  lost  your  memory?" 

"I  had  it  a  minute  ago — yes,"  after  an  instant's 
playful  consideration,  "  I  am  sure  that  I  have  it  now." 

"Then,  everybody  with  a  memory  certainly  keeps 
a  diary.  Would  you  want  me  to  read  all  the  foolish 
things  you  had  ever  thought?  Do  you  think  I  would 
want  to?" 

"No,"  she  answered. 

"There  you  are,  then!"  declared  the  Doge  victori- 
ously, as  he  rose,  slipping  a  rubber  band  with  a  for- 
bidding snap  over  the  last  book.  "And  this  is  all 
stupid  personal  stuff — but  mine  own!" 

There  was  an  unconscious  sigh  of  weariness  as  he 
took  up  the  thumbed  leather  volumes.  He  was  hag- 


156  OVER  THE  PASS 

gard.  "Mine  own"  had  given  him  no  pleasure  that 
evening.  All  the  years  of  his  life  seemed  to  rest  heavily 
upon  him  for  a  silent  moment.  Mary  feared  that  she 
had  hurt  him  by  her  request. 

"You  have  read  so  much  you  will  scarcely  do  any 
writing  to-night,"  she  ventured. 

"Yes,  I  will  add  a  few  more  lines — the  spirit  is  in  me 
— a  few  more  days  to  the  long  record,"  he  said,  absently, 
then,  after  a  pause,  suddenly,  with  a  kind  of  suppressed 
force  vibrating  in  his  voice:  "Well,  our  Sir  Chaps  has 
gone." 

"As  unceremoniously  as  he  came,"  she  answered. 

"It  was  terrible  the  way  he  broke  Nogales's  wrist!" 
remarked  the  Doge  narrowly. 

"Terrible!"  she  assented  as  she  folded  her  work,  her 
head  bent. 

"Gone,  and  doubtless  for  good!"  he  continued,  still 
watching  her  sharply. 

"Very  likely!"  she  answered  carelessly  without  look- 
ing up.  "His  vagarious  playtime  for  this  section  is 
over." 

"Just  it!    Just  it!"   the  Doge  exclaimed  happily. 

"And  if  Leddy  overtakes  him  now,  it's  his  own 
affair!" 

"Yes,  yes!  He  and  his  Wrath  of  God  and  Jag  Ear 
are  away  to  other  worlds!" 

"And  other  Leddys!" 

"No  doubt!  No  doubt!"  concluded  the  Doge,  in 
high  good  humor,  all  the  vexation  of  his  diary  seem- 
ingly forgotten  as  he  left  the  room. 

But,  as  the  Doge  and  Mary  were  to  find,  they  were 
alone  among  Little  Riversites  in  thinking  that  the 
breaking  of  Pedro  Nogales's  wrist  was  horrible.  Jim 


THE  DOGE  SNAPS  A  RUBBER  BAND    157 

Galway,  who  had  witnessed  the  affair,  took  a  radically 
contrary  view,  which  everyone  else  not  of  the  Leddy 
partisanship  readily  accepted.  Despite  the  frequency 
of  Jack's  visits  to  the  Ewold  garden  and  all  the  happy 
exchange  of  pleasantries  with  his  hosts,  the  community 
could  not  escape  the  thought  of  a  certain  latent  hos- 
tility toward  Jack  on  the  part  of  the  Doge,  the  more 
noticeable  because  it  was  so  out'  of  keeping  with  his 
nature. 

"  Doge,  sometimes  I  think  you  are  almost  prejudiced 
against  Jack  Wingfield  because  he  didn't  let  Leddy 
have  his  way,"  said  Jim,  with  an  outright  frankness 
that  was  unprecedented  in  speaking  to  Jasper  Ewold. 
"You're  such  a  regular  old  Quaker!" 

"But  that  little  Mexican  panting  in  abject  fear 
against  the  hedge!"  persisted  the  Doge. 

"A  nice,  peaceful  little  Mexican  with  a  knife,  sneak- 
ing up  to  plant  it  in  Jack's  neck!" 

"But  Jack  is  so  powerful!  And  his  look!  I  was 
so  near  I  could  see  it  well  as  he  towered  over  No- 
gales!" 

"  Yes,  no  mistaking  the  look.  I  saw  it  in  the  arroyo. 
It  made  me  think  of  what  the  look  of  one  of  those  old 
sea-fighters  might  have  been  like  when  they  lashed 
alongside  and  boarded  the  enemy." 

"And  the  crack  of  the  bone!"  continued  the  Doge. 

"Would  you  have  a  man  turn  cherub  when  he  has 
escaped  having  his  jugular  slashed  by  a  margin  of  two 
or  three  inches?  Would  you  have  him  say,  'Please, 
naughty  boy,  give  me  your  knife?  You  mustn't  play 
with  such  things!'  " 

"No!  That's  hyperbole!"  the  Doge  returned  with 
a  lame  attempt  at  a  laugh. 


158  OVER  THE  PASS 

"Mebbe  it  is,  whatever  hyperbole  is,"  said  Jim; 
"but  if  so,  hyperbole  is  a  darned  poor  means  of  self- 
defence.  Yes,  the  trouble  is  you  are  against  Jack 
Wingfield!" 

"Yes,  I  am!"  said  the  Doge  suddenly,  as  if  inward 
anger  had  got  the  better  of  him. 

"And  the  rest  of  us  are  for  him!"  Jim  declared 
sturdily. 

"Naturally!  naturally!"  said  the  Doge,  passing  his 
hand  over  his  brow.  "Yes,  youth  and  color  and  brav- 
ery!" He  shook  his  head  moodily,  as  if  Jim's  state- 
ment brought  up  some  vital,  unpleasant,  but  inevi- 
table fact  to  his  mind. 

"It's  beyond  me  how  anybody  can  help  liking  him!" 
concluded  Galway  stubbornly. 

"I  like  him — yes,  I  do  like  him!  I  cannot  help  it!" 
the  Doge  admitted  rather  grudgingly  as  he  turned 
away. 

"So  we  weren't  so  far  apart,  after  all!"  Galway 
hastened  to  call  after  the  Doge  in  apology  for  his  testi- 
ness.  "We  like  him  for  what  he  has  been  to  us  and 
will  always  be  to  us.  That's  the  only  criterion  of 
character  in  Little  Rivers  according  to  your  own  code, 
isn't  it,  Jasper  Ewold?" 

"Exactly!"  answered  the  Doge  over  his  shoulder. 

The  community  entered  into  a  committee  of  the 
whole  on  Jack  Wingfield.  With  every  citizen  contrib- 
uting a  quota  of  personal  experience,  his  story  was  re- 
hearsed from  the  day  of  his  arrival  to  the  day  of  his 
departure.  Argument  fluctuated  on  the  question  of 
whether  or  not  he  would  ever  return,  with  now  the 
noes  and  now  the  ayes  having  it.  On  this  point  Jim 
had  the  only  first-hand  evidence. 


THE  DOGE  SNAPS  A  RUBBER  BAND    159 

"He  said  to  let  things  grow  until  he  showed  up  or  I 
heard  from  him,"  said  Jim. 

"Not  what  I  would  call  enlightening,"  said  Bob 
Worther. 

"That  was  his  way  of  expressing  it;  but  to  do  him 
justice,  he  showed  what  a  good  rancher  he  was  by  his 
attention  to  the  details  that  had  to  be  cared  for,"  Jim 
added. 

"He's  like  the  spirit  of  the  winds,  I  guess,"  put  in 
Mrs.  Galway.  "Something  comes  a-calling  him  or  a- 
driving  him,  I  don't  know  which.  Indeed,  I'm  not 
altogether  certain  that  it  isn't  a  case  of  Mary  Ewold 
this  time!" 

"Yes,"  agreed  Jim.  "The  fighting  look  went  out 
of  his  face  when  she  spoke,  and  when  he  saw  how  hor- 
rified she  was,  why,  I  never  saw  such  a  change  come 
over  a  man !  It  was  just  like  a  piece  of  steel  wilting." 

However,  the  children,  who  had  no  part  in  the  au- 
gust discussions  of  the  committee  of  the  whole,  were 
certain  that  their  story-teller  would  come  back.  Their 
ideas  about  Jack  were  based  on  a  simple,  self-con- 
vincing faith  of  the  same  order  as  Firio's.  Lonely  as 
they  were,  they  were  hardly  more  lonely  than  their 
elders,  who  were  supposed  to  have  the  philosophy  of 
adults. 

No  Jack  singing  out  "Hello!"  on  the  main  street! 
No  Jack  looking  up  from  work  to  ask  boyishly:  "Am 
I  learning?  Oh,  I'll  be  the  boss  rancher  yet!"  No 
Jack  springing  all  sorts  of  conceits,  not  of  broad  humor, 
but  the  kind  that  sort  of  set  a  "twinkling  in  your 
insides,"  as  Bob  Worther  expressed  it!  No  Jack  in- 
spiring a  feeling  deeper  than  twinkles  on  his  sad  days! 
He  had  been  an  improvement  in  town  life  that  be- 


160  OVER  THE  PASS 

came  indispensable  once  it  was  absent.  Little  Rivers 
was  fairly  homesick  for  him. 

"How  did  we  ever  get  along  without  him  before  he 
came,  anyway?"  Bob  Worther  demanded. 

Then  another  new-comer,  as  distinctive  from  the 
average  settler  as  Jack  was,  diverted  talk  into  another 
channel,  without,  however,  reconciling  the  people  to 
their  loss. 


XVIII 
ANOTHER  STRANGER  ARRIVES 

If  the  history  of  Little  Rivers  were  to  be  written  in 
chapter  headings  the  first  would  be,  "Jasper  Ewold 
Founded  the  Town";  the  second,  "Jack  Wingfield 
Arrived";  and  the  third,  "John  Prather  Arrived." 

While  Jack  came  in  chaps  and  spurs,  bearing  an 
argosy  of  fancy,  Prather  came  by  rail,  carrying  a  suit- 
case in  a  conventional  and  businesslike  fashion.  Bill 
Deering,  as  the  representative  of  a  spring  wagon  that 
did  the  local  omnibus  and  express  business,  was  on  the 
platform  of  the  station  when  the  11: 15  rolled  in,  and 
sang  out,  in  a  burst  of  joy,  as  the  stranger,  a  man  in 
the  early  twenties,  stepped  off  the  Pullman: 

"What's  this,  Jack?  Back  by  train — and  in  store 
clothes?  Well,  of  all — "  and  saw  his  mistake  when  the 
stranger's  full  face  was  turned  toward  him. 

"Yes,  I  am  sometimes  called  Jack,"  said  the  stranger 
pleasantly.  "Now,  where  have  we  met  before?  Per- 
haps in  Goldfield?  No  matter.  It  is  time  we  got 
acquainted.  My  name  is  Prather,  and  yours?" 

As  he  surveyed  the  man  before  him,  Bill  was  as 
fussed  as  the  giant  of  the  fairy  story  had  been  by  a  dis- 
play of  yellow.  He  was  uncertain  whether  he  was  giv- 
ing his  own  baptismal  name  or  somebody's  else. 

"By  Jing!  No,  I  don't  know  you,  but  you  sure  are 
the  dead  spit  of  a  fellow  I  do  know!"  said  Bill. 

"Well,  he  has  done  me  the  favor  of  introducing  me 
161 


162  OVER  THE  PASS 

to  you,  anyway,"  said  Prather,  who  had  a  remarkably 
ingratiating  smile.  "  I  would  like  a  place  to  stop  while 
I  take  a  look  around.  Is  there  a  hotel?" 

"Rooms  over  the  store  and  grub  at  Mrs.  Smith's — 
none  better!" 

"That  will  do." 

As  they  rode  into  town  more  than  one  passer-by 
called  out  a  ringing  "Hello,  Jack!"  or,  "Back,  eh, 
Jack?  Hurrah  for  you!"  and  then  uttered  an  exclama- 
tion of  disillusion  when  Prather  turned  his  head. 

"The  others  see  it,  too,"  said  Bill. 

"They  seem  to.     Who  is  this  double  of  mine?" 

"Jack  Wingfield." 

"Jack  Wingfield?  It  seems  that  our  first  names 
are  the  same,  too.  He  lives  here,  I  take  it." 

"Yes.    But  he's  away  now." 

"Well,  when  he  comes  back" — with  a  pause  of  slight 
irritation — "there  will  be  no  difficulty  in  telling  us 
apart." 

He  put  his  finger  to  a  triangular  patch  of  mole  on  his 
cheek.  His  irritation  passed  and  a  sense  of  apprecia- 
tive amusement  at  the  distinction  took  its  place. 

"Now,  where  shall  I  find  Jasper  Ewold?"  he  asked, 
as  Bill  drew  up  before  the  Smiths. 

A  few  minutes  later  the  Doge,  busy  among  his  orange- 
trees,  hearing  a  step,  looked  up  with  a  signal  of  recog- 
nition which  changed  to  blank  inquiry  when  the  cheek 
with  the  mole  was  turned  toward  him. 

"Upon  my  word,  sir,  I — I  thought  that  you  were — " 
he  began. 

"Mr  Wingfield!  Yes,  everybody  in  town  seems  to 
think  so  at  first  glance,  so  I  am  quite  used  to  the  com- 
parison by  this  time,"  Prather  put  in,  easily.  "It  is 


ANOTHER  STRANGER  ARRIVES       163 

very  interesting  to  meet  the  founder  of  a  town,  and 
I  have  come  to  you  to  find  out  about  conditions 
here." 

Prather  did  not  appear  as  if  he  had  ever  done  manual 
labor.  He  was  too  young  to  have  turned  from  ill 
health  or  failure  in  the  city  to  the  refuge  of  the  land. 
Indeed,  his  quiet  gray  suit  of  good  material  indicated 
unostentatious  prosperity.  Evidently  he  was  well-bred 
and  evidently  he  was  not  an  agent  for  a  new  style  of 
seeding  harrow  or  weed  killer. 

"You  think  of  settling?"   asked  the  Doge. 

"Yes.  From  all  I  have  heard  of  Little  Rivers,  it's 
a  community  where  I  should  feel  at  home." 

"Then,  sir,  we  will  talk  of  it  at  luncheon;  it  is  knock- 
ing-off  time  for  the  morning.  Yes,  I'll  talk  as  much  as 
you  please.  Come  on,  Mr.  Prather!"  They  started 
along  the  avenue  of  palms,  the  Doge  still  studying  the 
face  at  his  side.  "Pardon  me  for  staring  at  you,  but 
the  resemblance  to  Jack  Wingfield  at  first  sight  is  most 
striking,"  he  added. 

"Has  he  travelled  much  in  the  West?"  asked 
Prather. 

"Yes,  much — leading  an  aimless  life." 

"Then  he  must  be  the  one  that  I  was  taken  for  in 
Salt  Lake  City  one  day.  The  man  who  called  out  to 
me  saw  his  mistake,  just  as  you  did,  when  he  saw  my 
full  face;"  and  again  Prather  made  a  gesture  of  under- 
standing amusement  to  the  mole. 

"When  you  consider  what  confusion  there  must  be 
in  the  workrooms,  with  the  storks  flapping  and  screech- 
ing like  newsboys  outside  the  delivery  room,"  mused 
the  Doge,  "and  when  you  consider  the  multitudinous 
population  of  the  earth,  it's  surprising  that  the  good 


164  OVER  THE  PASS 

Lord  is  able  to  furnish  such  a  variety  of  faces  as  he 
does.  But  they  do  say  that  every  one  of  us  has  a  few 
doubles.  In  the  case  of  famous  public  men  they  get 
their  pictures  in  the  papers." 

"Yes,  very  few  of  us  but  have  been  mistaken  for  a 
friend  by  a  stranger  passing  in  the  street!"  Prather 
suggested. 

"Only  to  have  the  stranger  see  his  mistake  at  a 
second  glance;  and  on  second  glance  you  do  not  look 
very  much  like  Jack  Wingfield,"  the  Doge  concluded. 
"Just  a  coincidence  in  physiognomy!" 

And  Prather  was  very  frank  about  his  past. 

"I  have  led  rather  a  hard  life,"  he  said.  "Though 
I  was  well  brought  up  my  father  left  mother  and  me 
quite  penniless.  I  had  to  fend  for  myself  at  the  age 
of  sixteen.  A  friend  gave  me  an  opportunity  to  go  to 
Goldfield  at  the  outbreak  of  the  excitement  there. 
The  rough  experience  of  a  mining-camp  was  not  exactly 
to  my  taste,  but  it  meant  a  livelihood.  My  real  in- 
terest has  always  been  in  irrigation  farming.  I  would 
rather  grow  a  good  crop  than  mine  for  gold.  Well, 
I  saved  a  little  money  at  Goldfield — saved  it  to  buy 
land.  But  land  is  not  the  only  consideration.  The 
surroundings,  the  people  with  whom  you  have  to  live 
count  for  a  great  deal  when  you  mean  to  settle  perma- 
nently." 

"Excellent!"  declared  the  Doge.  "A  good  citizen 
in  full  fellowship  with  your  neighbors!  Exactly  what 
we  want  in  Little  Rivers." 

Prather  had  a  complexion  of  that  velvety  whiteness 
that  never  tans.  His  eyes  were  calm,  yet  attractive, 
with  a  peculiar  insinuating  charm  when  he  talked  that 
made  it  seem  easy  and  natural  to  respond  to  his  wishes. 


ANOTHER  STRANGER  ARRIVES       165 

In  listening  he  had  an  ingratiating  manner  that  was 
flattering  to  the  speaker. 

"  A  practical  man ! "  the  Doge  said  to  Mary  that  even- 
ing. "The  kind  we  need  here.  He  and  I  had  a  grand 
afternoon  of  it  together.  Every  one  of  his  questions 
about  soils  and  cultivation  was  to  the  point." 

"Not  one  argument?"  she  asked. 

"No,  Mary;  no  time  for  argument." 

"You  do  like  people  to  agree  with  you,  after  all!" 
she  hazarded.  For  she  did  not  like  Prather. 

"Pooh!  Not  a  matter  of  agreement!  No  persi- 
flage! No  altitudinous  conversation  of  the  kind  that 
grows  no  crops.  Prather  wants  to  learn,  and  he's  got 
good,  clean  ideas,  with  a  trained  and  accurate  mind — 
the  best  possible  combination.  I  hope  he  will  stay 
for  the  very  reason  that  he  is  not  the  kind  that  takes 
up  a  plot  of  land  for  life  on  an  impulse,  which  usually 
results  in  turning  on  the  water  and  getting  discouraged 
because  nature  will  not  do  the  rest.  But  he  is  very 
favorably  impressed.  He  said  that  after  Goldfield 
Little  Rivers  was  like  Paradise — practical  Paradise. 
Good  phrase,  practical  Paradise!" 

In  two  or  three  days  the  new-comer  knew  everyone 
in  town;  but  though  he  addressed  the  men  by  their 
first  names  they  always  addressed  him  as  "Mr.  Pra- 
ther." In  another  respect  besides  his  features  he  was 
like  Jack:  he  was  much  given  to  smiling. 

"The  difference  between  his  smile  and  Jack's,"  said 
Mrs.  Galway,  who  was  at  one  with  Mary  in  not  liking 
him,  "is  that  his  is  sort  of  a  dra wing-in  kind  of  smile 
and  Jack's  sort  of  radiates." 

The  children  developed  no  interest  in  him.  It  was 
evident  that  he  could  not  tell  stories,  except  with  an 


166  OVER  THE  PASS 

effort.  In  his  goings  and  comings,  ever  asking  pleasant 
questions  and  passing  compliments,  he  was  usually 
accompanied  by  the  Doge,  and  his  attitude  toward  the 
old  man  was  the  admiring  deference  of  disciple  for 
master. 

"  I  am  sorry  I  don't  understand  that,"  he  would  say 
when  the  Doge  fell  into  a  scholastic  allusion  to  explain 
a  point.  "  I  was  hard  at  work  when  lots  of  my  friends 
were  in  college." 

"Learning  may  be  ruination,"  responded  the  Doge, 
"though  it  wouldn't  have  been  in  your  case.  It's  the 
man  that  counts.  See  what  you  have  made  of  your- 
self!" 

"Ah,  yes,  but  I  feel  that  I  have  missed  something. 
When  I  am  settled  here  I  shall  be  able  to  make  up  for 
lost  time,  with  your  help,  sir." 

"Every  pigeonhole  in  my  mind  will  be  open  at  your 
call!"  said  the  Doge,  glowing  at  the  prospect. 

The  favor  that  Prather  found  in  the  eyes  of  Jasper 
Ewold  partly  accounted  for  what  favor  he  found  in 
Little  Rivers'  eyes. 

"Prather  has  certainly  made  a  hit  with  the  Doge!" 
quoth  Bob  Worther.  "As  the  Doge  gets  older  I  reckon 
he  will  like  compliments  better  than  persiflage.  But 
Jack  could  pay  a  compliment,  too — only  he  never  used 
the  ladle." 

It  was  Bob,  as  inspector  of  ditches  and  dams,  who 
provided  a  horse  for  Prather  to  inspect  the  source  of 
the  water  supply.  In  keeping  with  a  characteristic 
thoroughness,  Prather  wanted  to  go  up  the  river  into 
the  canyon.  He  made  himself  a  very  enjoyable  com- 
panion on  the  way,  drawing  out  all  of  Bob's  best  stories. 
When  they  stopped  in  sight  of  the  streak  of  blue  sky 


ANOTHER  STRANGER  ARRIVES       167 

through  the  breach  in  the  mighty  wall  that  had  once 
imprisoned  the  ancient  lake,  he  was  silent  for  some 
time,  while  he  surveyed  this  grandeur  of  the  heights 
with  smiling  contemplation,  at  intervals  rubbing  the 
palms  of  his  hands  together  in  a  manner  habitual  with 
him  when  he  was  particularly  pleased. 

"I  guess  the  same  idea  has  struck  you  that  strikes 
everybody  at  sight  of  that,  seh!"  said  Bob. 

"Yes,  a  dam  might  be  practical,"  Prather  answered. 
"But  it  would  take  a  lot  of  capital — a  lot  of  capital!" 

On  the  way  back  they  stopped  before  a  dilapi- 
dated shanty  near  the  foothills.  In  the  midst  of  a 
littered  yard  old  man  Lefferts,  half  dozing,  occupied  a 
broken  chair. 

"Since  the  Doge  came  old  man  Lefferts  has  had  to 
do  no  work  at  all.  A  Mexican  looks  after  him.  But 
it  hasn't  made  him  any  happier,"  Bob  explained  as 
they  approached. 

"Howdy  yourself?"  growled  Lefferts  in  answer  to 
Bob's  greeting. 

"He  seems  to  be  a  character!"  whispered  Prather  to 
Bob,  as  he  smiled  at  the  prospect.  "To  confess  the 
truth,  I  am  a  little  saddle  sore  and  tired.  I  didn't  get 
much  riding  in  Goldfield.  I  think  I'll  stop  and  rest 
and  get  acquainted." 

"You  won't  get  much  satisfaction  but  growls." 

"That  will  be  all  the  more  fun  for  me,"  rejoined 
Prather.  "But  don't  let  me  keep  you." 

"No.  I  must  be  going  on.  I've  got  some  things  to 
look  after  before  nightfall,"  said  Bob,  while  Prather, 
in  a  humor  proof  against  any  hermit  cantankerousness, 
rode  into  the  yard. 

When  he  returned  after  dark  he  said,  laughingly, 


168  OVER  THE  PASS 

that  he  had  enjoyed  himself,  though  the  conversation 
was  all  on  one  side.  The  next  morning  he  decided  to 
take  up  the  plot  of  land  adjoining  Jack's. 

"But  I  shall  not  be  able  to  begin  work  for  a  few 
weeks,"  he  said.  "  I  must  go  to  Goldfield  to  settle  up 
my  affairs  before  I  begin  my  new  career." 

"  If  Jack  ever  comes  back  I  wonder  what  he  will  say 
to  his  new  neighbor!"  Little  Rivers  wondered. 


XIX 

LOOKING  OVER  PRECIPICES 

To  Mary  Ewold  the  pass  was  a  dividing  line  between 
two  appeals.  The  Little  Rivers  side,  with  the  green 
patch  of  oasis  in  the  distance,  had  a  message  of  peace- 
ful enjoyment  of  what  fortune  had  provided  for  her. 
Under  its  spell  she  saw  herself  content  to  live  within 
garden  walls  forever  in  the  land  that  had  given  her 
life,  grateful  for  the  trickles  of  intelligence  that  came 
by  mail  from  the  outside  world. 

The  other  side  aroused  a  mighty  restlessness.  There- 
fore, she  rarely  made  that  short  journey  which  spread 
another  panorama  of  space  before  her.  But  this  was 
one  of  the  afternoons  when  she  welcomed  a  tumult  of 
any  kind  as  a  relief  from  her  depression;  and  she  went 
on  through  the  V  as  soon  as  she  reached  the  summit. 

Seated  on  a  flat-topped  rock,  oblivious  of  the  pas- 
sage of  time,  of  the  dream  cities  of  the  Eternal  Painter, 
she  was  staring  far  away  where  the  narrowing  gray 
line  between  the  mountain  rims  met  the  sky.  She  was 
seeing  beyond  the  horizon.  She  was  seeing  cities  of 
memory  and  reality.  A  great  yearning  was  in  her 
heart.  All  the  monotonous  level  lap  of  the  heights 
which  seemed  without  end  was  a  symbol  that  sepa- 
rated her  from  her  desire. 

She  imagined  herself  in  a  Pullman,  flashing  by  farms 
and  villages;  in  a  shop  selecting  gowns;  viewing  from 
169 


170  OVER  THE  PASS 

a  high  window  the  human  stream  of  Fifth  Avenue; 
taking  passage  on  a  steamer;  hearing  again  foreign 
tongues  long  ago  familiar  to  her  ears;  sensing  the  rus- 
tle of  great  audiences  before  a  curtain  rose;  glimpsing 
the  Mediterranean  from  a  car  window;  feeling  herself 
a  unit  in  the  throbbing  promenade  of  the  life  of  many 
streets  while  her  hunger  took  its  fill  of  a  busy  world. 

"It  is  hard  to  do  it  all  in  imagination!"  she  said  to 
herself.  "  Even  imagination  needs  an  occasional  nest- 
egg  of  reality  by  way  of  encouragement." 

An  hour  on  the  far  side  of  the  pass  played  the  emo- 
tional part  for  her  of  a  storm  of  tears  for  many  another 
woman.  She  rejoiced  in  being  utterly  alone;  rejoiced 
in  the  grandeur  of  the  very  wastes  around  her  as  mount- 
ing guard  over  the  freedom  of  her  thoughts.  There 
was  no  living  speck  on  the  trail,  which  she  knew  lay 
across  the  expanse  of  parched  earth  to  the  edge  of  the 
blue  dome;  there  was  not  even  a  bird  in  the  air.  Un- 
disturbed, she  might  think  anything,  pray  for  anything; 
she  might  feed  the  flame  of  revolt  till  the  fuel  of  many 
weeks'  accumulation  had  burned  itself  out  and  left  her 
calm  in  the  wisdom  and  understanding  that  reconciled 
her  to  her  portion  and  freshened  to  return  through 
Galeria  to  the  quiet  routine  of  her  daily  existence. 

Her  mind  paused  in  its  travels  from  capital  to  capital 
and  she  was  conscious  solely  of  the  stark  majesty  of 
her  surroundings.  She  listened.  There  was  no  sound. 
The  spacious  stillness  was  soothing  to  her  nerves;  a 
specific  when  all  the  Eternal  Painter's  art  failed.  She 
closed  her  eyes,  trying  to  realize  that  great  silence  as 
one  would  try  to  realize  the  Infinite.  Then  faintly 
she  heard  a  man's  voice  singing.  It  seemed  at  first  a 
trick  of  the  imagination.  But  nearer  and  nearer  it 


LOOKING  OVER  PRECIPICES          171 

came,  in  the  fellowship  of  life  joyfully  invading  the 
solitude;  and  with  a  readjustment  of  her  faculties  to 
the  expected  event,  she  watched  the  point  where  the 
trail  dipped  on  a  sharp  turn  of  grade. 

Above  it  rose  a  cowpuncher  hat,  then  a  silk  shirt 
with  a  string  tie,  and  after  that  a  sage  baggage  burro 
with  clipped  ears,  a  solemn-faced  pony,  and  an  Indian. 
Jack  was  watching  his  steps  in-  the  uneven  path,  and 
not  until  the  full  length  of  him  had  appeared  and  he 
was  flush  on  the  level  with  her  did  he  look  up. 

She  was  leaning  back,  her  weight  partly  poised  on 
the  flat  of  her  hand  on  the  rock,  revealing  the  full 
curve  of  throat  and  the  soft  sweep  of  the  lines  of  her 
slim  figure,  erect,  her  head  thrown  back,  her  face  in 
shadow  with  the  sun  behind  playing  in  her  hair,  in  half- 
defiant  readiness.  She  saw  him  as  the  spirit  of  travel — 
its  ease,  mystery,  unattachedness — which  had  spanned 
the  distances  between  her  and  the  horizon,  in  the  free- 
dom of  his  wandering  choice.  His  low-pitched  ex- 
clamation of  surprise  was  vibrant  with  appreciation  of 
the  picture  she  made,  and  he  stood  quite  still  in  a  sec- 
ond's wistful  silence,  waiting  on  her  first  word  after 
the  lapse  of  the  many  days  since  he  had  brought  a  look 
of  horror  into  her  eyes. 

"Hello,  Jack!"  she  said  in  the  old  tone  of  com- 
radeship. It  struck  a  spark  electrifying  him  with  all 
his  old,  happy  manner. 

He  swept  off  his  hat  with  a  grand  bow,  blinking  in 
the  blaze  of  the  sun  which  turned  his  tan  to  a  bronze 
and  touched  the  smile,  which  was  born  as  an  inspira- 
tion from  her  greeting,  with  radiance. 

"Hello  to  you,  Mary,  guarding  the  pass  to  Little 
Rivers!"  he  said  exultantly.  "You  are  just  the  per- 


172  OVER  THE  PASS 

son  I  wanted  to  see.  I  have  been  in  a  hurry  to  tell 
you  about  a  certain  thing  ever  since  it  came  to  me 
this  morning." 

She  guessed  that  he  was  about  to  make  up  a  new 
story.  He  must  have  had  time  for  many  inventions 
in  the  ten  days  of  his  absence.  But  she  welcomed  any 
tangent  of  nonsense  that  set  the  right  key  for  the  co- 
incidence of  their  meeting.  She  had  refused  to  ride 
to  the  pass  with  him  and  here  they  were  alone  together 
on  the  pass.  Three  or  four  steps,  so  light  that  they 
seemed  to  be  irresistibly  winning  permission  from  her, 
and  he  had  sat  down  on  another  flat-topped  rock  close 
by.  Firio  and  the  baggage  train  moved  on  up  the  trail 
methodically  and  stopped  well  in  the  background. 

"You  know  how  when  you  meet  a  person  you  are 
sometimes  haunted  by  a  conviction  that  you  have 
met  him  before!"  he  began.  "How  exasperated  you 
are  not  to  be  able  to  recall  the  time  and  place!" 

"Had  you  forgotten  where  you  met  the  dinosaur?" 
she  asked.  "He  must  have  thought  you  very  impo- 
lite after  all  the  trouble  he  had  taken  to  make  you  re- 
member him  the  last  time  you  went  through  the  pass." 

"Oh,  the  dinosaur  and  I  have  patched  up  a  truce, 
because  it  seems,  after  all,  that  I  had  mistaken  his  iden- 
tity and  he  was  a  pleosaur.  But" — he  did  not  take 
the  pains  to  parry  her  interruption  with  more  foolery, 
and  proceeded  as  if  she  had  not  spoken — "  it  has  never 
been  out  of  my  mind  that  your  father  gave  me  a  glance 
at  our  first  meeting  which  asked  the  question  that  has 
kept  recurring  to  me:  Where  had  he  and  I  seen  each 
other  before?" 

"Well?"  she  said  curiously,  recalling  her  father's 
repeated  allusions  to  "this  Wingfield,"  his  strange  de- 


LOOKING  OVER  PRECIPICES          173 

pression  after  Jack  had  left  the  night  before  the  duel, 
his  reticence  and  animadversions. 

"I  said  nothing  about  it,  nor  did  he.  I  wonder  if 
it  has  not  been  a  kind  of  contest  between  us  as  to  which 
should  be  the  first  to  say  'Tag!'  " 

She  smiled  at  this  and  leaned  farther  back,  but  with 
the  curtain  of  her  eyelashes  widening  in  tremulous  in- 
tensity. 

"I  knew  it  would  come!"  he  went  on,  with  dramatic 
fervor.  "Such  things  do  come  unexpectedly  in  a  flash 
when  there  is  a  sudden  electric  connection  with  some 
dusty  pigeonhole  in  the  mind.  It  was  in  Florence  that 
he  and  I  met!  In  Florence,  on  the  road  to  Fiesole!" 

"Florence!  The  road  to  Fiesole!"  Mary  repeated; 
and  the  names  seemed  to  rouse  in  her  a  rapturous 
recollection.  She  leaned  forward  now,  her  lips  apart, 
her  eyes  glowing.  In  place  of  wastes  she  was  seeing 
brown  roofs  and  the  sweep  of  the  Tuscan  Valley. 

"And  we  met — you  and  //" 

"We?"  Her  glance  came  sharply  back  from  the 
distances  in  the  astonishment  of  dilating  pupils  that 
drew  together  in  inquiry  as  she  saw  that  he  was  in 
earnest. 

"Yes.  I  was  at  the  extremely  mature  age  of  six  and 
you  must  have  been  about  a  year  younger.  Do  you 
remember  it  at  all?" 

"  No ! "  She  was  silent,  concentrated,  groping.  "  No, 
no ! "  she  repeated.  "  Five  is  very  immature  compared 
to  six!" 

"Your  father  had  a  beard  then,  a  great  blond  beard 
that  excited  my  emulation.  When  I  grew  up  I  was 
going  to  have  one  like  it  and  just  such  bushy  eyebrows. 
You  came  up  the  Fiesole  road  at  his  side,  holding  fast 


174  OVER  THE  PASS 

to  his  thumb.  I  was  playing  at  our  villa  gate.  You 
went  up  the  path  with  him  to  see  my  mother — I  can 
see  just  how  you  looked  holding  so  fast  to  that  thumb ! 
After  a  while  you  came  straying  out  alone.  Now  don't 
you  remember?  Don't  you?  Something  quite  sen- 
sational happened." 

"No!" 

"  Well,  I  showed  off  what  a  great  boy  I  was.  I  walked 
on  the  parapet  of  the  villa  wall.  I  bowed  to  my  audi- 
ence aged  five  with  the  grandeur  of  a  tight-rope  per- 
former who  has  just  done  his  best  thriller  as  a  climax 
to  his  turn." 

"Yes — yes!"  she  breathed,  with  quick-running  em- 
phasis. Out  of  the  mists  of  fifteen  years  had  come  a 
signal.  She  bent  nearer  to  him  in  the  wonder  of  a 
thing  found  in  the  darkness  of  memory,  which  always 
has  the  fascination  of  a  communication  from  another 
world.  "You  wanted  me  to  come  up  on  the  wall," 
she  said,  taking  up  the  thread  of  the  story.  "You 
said  it  was  so  easy,  and  you  helped  me  up,  and  when 
I  looked  down  at  the  road  I  was  overcome  and  fell  down 
all  in  a  heap  on  the  parapet." 

"And  heavens!"  he  gasped,  living  the  scene  over 
again,  "wasn't  I  frightened  for  fear  you  would  tumble 
off!" 

"But  I  remember  that  you  helped  me  down  very 
nicely — and — and  that  is  all  I  do  remember.  What 
then?" 

She  had  come  to  a  blind  alley  and  perplexity  was  in 
her  face,  though  she  tried  to  put  the  question  non- 
chalantly. What  then?  How  deep  ran  the  current 
of  this  past  association? 

"Why,  there  wasn't  much  else.    Your  father  came 


LOOKING  OVER  PRECIPICES          175 

down  the  path  and  his  big  thumb  took  you  in  tow.  I 
did  not  see  you  again.  A  week  later  mother  and  I  had 
gone  to  Switzerland — we  were  always  on  the  move." 

The  candor  of  his  glance  told  her  that  this  was  all. 
As  boy  and  girl  they  had  met  under  an  Italian  sky. 
As  man  and  woman  they  had  met  under  an  Arizona 
sky. 

Now  the  charm  of  the  Florence  of  their  affections 
held  them  with  a  magic  touch.  They  were  not  in  a 
savage  setting,  looking  out  over  savage  distances,  but 
on  the  Piazzale  Michelangelo,  looking  out  over  the  city 
of  Renaissance  genius  which  slumbers  on  the  refulgent 
bosom  of  its  past;  they  were  oblivious  of  the  Eternal 
Painter's  canvasses  and  enjoying  Raphael's,  Botti- 
celli's, and  Andrea  del  Sarto's.  Possibly  the  Eternal 
Painter,  in  the  leniency  of  philosophic  appreciation  of 
their  oblivion  to  his  art,  hazarded  a  guess  about  the 
destiny  of  this  pair.  He  could  not  really  have  known 
their  destiny.  No,  it  is  impossible  to  grant  him  the 
power  of  divination;  for  if  he  had  it  he  might  not  be 
so  young  of  heart. 

Their  talk  flitted  here  and  there  in  exclamations, 
each  bringing  an  entail  of  recollection  of  some  familiar, 
enjoyed  thing;  and  when  at  last  it  returned  to  their 
immediate  surroundings  the  shadow  of  the  range  was 
creeping  out  onto  the  plain,  cut  by  the  brilliance  of 
the  sun  through  the  V.  Mary  rose  with  a  quick,  self- 
accusing  cry  about  the  lateness  of  the  hour.  To  him 
it  was  a  call  on  his  resources  to  delay  their  departure. 

"Do  you  see  where  that  shelf  breaks  abruptly?"  he 
asked.  "It  must  be  the  side  of  a  canyon.  Have  you 
ever  looked  down?" 

"I  started  to  once." 


176  OVER  THE  PASS 

"  I  should  not  like  to  go  over  the  pass  again  without 
seeing  if  this  is  really  a  canyon  of  any  account.  I  feel 
myself  quite  an  authority  on  canyons." 

"It  will  be  dark  before  we  reach  Little  Rivers!"  she 
protested. 

"Ten  minutes — only  a  step!"  and  he  was  appeal- 
ing in  his  boyish  fashion  to  have  his  way. 

"Nonsense!    Besides,  I  do  not  care  for  canyons." 

"You  still  fear,  then,  to  look  down  from  walls? 
You " 

And  this  decided  her.  On  another  occasion  she  had 
gone  to  the  precipice  edge  and  faltered.  She  would 
master  her  dizziness  for  once  and  all;  he  should  not 
know  from  her  any  confession  of  a  weakness  which 
was  purely  of  the  imagination. 

The  point  to  which  he  had  alluded  was  an  immense 
overhanging  slab  of  granite  stratum  deep  set  in  the 
mountain  side.  As  they  approached,  a  thrill  of  light- 
ness and  uncertainty  was  setting  her  limbs  a-quiver. 
Her  elbow  was  touching  his,  her  will  driving  her  feet 
forward  desperately.  Suddenly  she  was  gazing  down, 
down,  down,  into  black  depths  which  seemed  calling 
irresistibly  and  melting  her  power  of  muscular  volition, 
while  he  with  another  step  was  on  the  very  edge,  lean- 
ing over  and  smiling.  She  dropped  back  convulsively. 
He  was  all  happy  absorption  in  the  face  of  that  abyss. 
How  easy  for  him  to  topple  over  and  go  hurtling  into 
the  chasm! 

"Don't!"  she  gasped,  and  blindly  tugged  at  his 
arm  to  draw  him  back. 

As  he  looked  around  in  surprise  and  inquiry,  she 
withdrew  her  hand  in  a  reaction  against  her  familiarity, 
yet  did  not  lower  it,  holding  it  out  with  fingers  spread 


LOOKING  OVER  PRECIPICES          177 

in  expression  of  her  horror.  Serenely  he  regarded  her 
for  a  moment  in  her  confusion  and  distress,  and  then, 
smiling,  while  the  still  light  of  confidence  was  in  his 
eyes,  he  locked  his  arm  in  hers.  Before  she  could  pro- 
test or  resist  he  had  drawn  her  to  his  side. 

"It  is  just  as  safe  as  looking  off  the  roof  of  a  porch 
on  to  a  flower  garden,"  he  said. 

And  why  she  knew  not,  but  the  fact  had  come  as 
something  definite  and  settled:  she  was  no  longer 
dizzy  or  uncertain.  Calmly,  in  the  triumph  of  mind 
over  fear,  in  the  glory  of  a  new  sensation  of  power, 
she  looked  down  into  that  gulf  of  shadows — looked 
down  for  a  thousand  feet,  where  the  narrowing,  sheer 
walls  merged  into  darkness. 

From  this  pit  to  the  blue  above  there  was  only  in- 
finite silence,  with  no  movement  but  his  pulse-beat 
which  she  could  feel  in  his  wrist  distinctly.  He  had 
her  fast,  a  pawn  of  one  of  his  impulses.  A  shiver  of 
revolt  ran  through  her.  He  had  taken  this  liberty  be- 
cause she  had  shown  weakness.  And  she  was  not  weak. 
She  had  come  to  the  precipice  to  prove  that  she  was  not. 

"  Thank  you.  My  little  tremor  of  horror  has  passed, ' ' 
she  told  him.  "I  can  stand  without  help,  now." 

He  released  his  hold  and  she  stood  quite  free  of  him, 
a  glance  flashing  her  independence.  Smilingly  she 
looked  down  and  smilingly  and  triumphantly  back  at 
him. 

"You  need  not  keep  your  arm  up  in  that  fashion 
ready  to  assist  me.  It  is  tiring,"  she  said,  with  a  touch 
of  her  old  fire  of  banter  over  the  barrier.  "I  am  all 
right,  now.  I  don't  know  what  gave  me  that  giddy 
turn — probably  sitting  still  so  long  and  looking  out 
at  the  blaze  of  the  desert." 


178  OVER  THE  PASS 

He  swept  her  with  a  look  of  admiration;  and  their 
eyes  meeting,  she  looked  back  into  the  abyss. 

"I  wish  I  had  such  courage,"  he  said  with  sudden, 
tense  earnestness;  "courage  to  master  my  revulsion 
against  shadows." 

"Perhaps  it  will  come  like  an  inspiration,"  she  an- 
swered uncomprehendingly. 

Then  both  were  silent  until  she  spoke  of  a  stunted 
little  pine  three  or  four  hundred  feet  down,  in  the 
crotch  of  an  outcropping.  Its  sinking  roots  had  split 
a  rock,  over  which  the  other  roots  sprawled  in  gnarly 
persistence.  Some  passing  bird  had  dropped  the  seed 
which  had  found  a  bed  in  a  pocket  of  dust  from  the 
erosions  of  time.  So  it  had  grown  and  set  up  house- 
keeping in  its  isolation,  even  as  the  community  of 
Little  Rivers  had  in  a  desert  basin  beside  a  water-course. 

"The  little  pine  has  courage — the  courage  of  the 
dwarf,"  she  said.  "It  is  worth  more  than  a  whole 
forest  of  its  majestic  cousins  in  Maine.  How  green 
it  is — greener  than  they!" 

"But  they  rise  straight  to  heaven  in  their  majesty!" 
he  returned,  to  make  controversy. 

"Yes,  out  of  the  ease  of  their  rich  beds!" 

"  In  a  crowd  and  waiting  for  the  axe ! " 

"And  this  one,  in  its  isolation,  creating  something 
where  there  was  nothing!  Every  one  of  its  needles  is 
counted  in  its  cost  of  birth  out  of  the  stubborn  soil! 
And  waiting  all  its  life  down  there  for  the  reward  of 
a  look  and  a  word  of  praise!" 

"But,"  he  went  on,  in  the  delight  of  hearing  her 
voice  in  rebuttal,  "the  big  pines  give  us  the  masts  of 
ships  and  they  build  houses  and  furnish  the  kindling 
for  the  hardwood  logs  of  the  hearth!" 


LOOKING  OVER  PRECIPICES          179 

"The  little  pine  makes  no  pretensions.  It  has  done 
more.  It  has  given  us  something  without  which  houses 
are  empty:  It  has  given  us  a  thought!" 

"True!"  he  exclaimed  soberly,  yielding.  And  now 
all  the  lively  signals  of  the  impulse  of  action  played 
on  his  face.  "  For  your  glance  and  your  word  of  praise 
it  shall  pay  you  tribute!"  he  cried.  "I  am  going 
down  to  bring  you  one  of  its  clusters  of  spines." 

"But,  Jack,  it  is  a  dangerous  climb — it  is  late!  No! 
no!" 

"No  climb  at  all.  It  is  easy  if  I  work  my  way 
around  by  that  ledge  yonder.  I  see  stepping-places 
all  the  way." 

How  like  him !  While  she  thought  only  of  the  pine, 
he  had  been  thinking  how  to  make  a  descent;  how  to 
conquer  some  physical  difficulty.  Already  he  had 
started  despite  her  protest. 

"I  don't  want  to  rob  the  little  pine!"  she  called, 
testily. 

"I'll  bring  a  needle,  then!" 

"Even  every  needle  is  precious!" 

"I'll  bring  a  dead  one,  then!" 

There  was  no  combatting  him,  she  knew,  when  he 
was  headstrong;  and  when  he  was  particularly  head- 
strong he  would  laugh  in  his  soft  way.  He  was  laugh- 
ing now  as  he  took  off  his  spurs  and  tossed  them  aside. 

"No  climbing  in  these  cart-wheels,  and  I  shall  have 
to  roll  up  my  chaps!" 

She  went  back  to  the  precipice  edge  to  prove  to  him, 
to  prove  to  herself,  that  she  could  stand  there  alone, 
without  the  moral  support  of  anyone  at  her  side,  and 
found  that  she  could.  She  had  mastered  her  weakness. 
It  was  as  if  a  new  force  had  been  born  in  her.  She 


180  OVER  THE  PASS 

felt  its  stiffening  in  every  fibre  as  she  saw  him  pass 
around  the  ledge  and  start  down  toward  the  little  pine; 
felt  it  as  something  which  could  build  barriers  and 
mount  them  with  an  invulnerable  guard. 

How  would  he  get  past  that  steep  shoulder?  The 
worst  obstacle  confronted  him  at  the  very  beginning 
of  the  descent.  He  was  hugging  a  rock  face,  feeling 
his  way,  with  nothing  but  a  few  inches  of  a  projecting 
seam  between  him  and  the  darkness  far  below.  His 
foot  slipped,  his  body  turned  half  around,  and  she 
had  a  second  of  the  horror  that  she  had  felt  when  wait- 
ing for  the  sound  of  Leddy's  shot  in  Bill  Lang's  store. 
She  saw  his  outspread  hands  clutching  the  seam  above; 
watched  for  them  to  let  go.  But  they  held;  the  foot 
groped  and  got  its  footing  again,  and  he  worked  his 
way  out  on  a  shelf. 

He  was  safe  and  she  dropped  on  her  knees  weakly, 
still  looking  down  at  him.  It  was  the  old  story  of  their 
relations.  Was  this  man  ever  to  be  subjecting  her  to 
spasms  of  fear  on  his  account?  And  there  he  was 
beaming  up  at  her  reassuringly,  while  she  felt  the  blood 
which  had  gone  from  her  face  return  in  a  hot  flood. 
It  brought  with  it  anger  in  place  of  fear. 

"I  don't  want  it!    I  don't  want  it!"  she  cried  down. 

"And  I  want  to  get  it  for  you!  I  want  to  get  it  for 
you — for  you!"  His  voice  was  a  tumult  of  emotion 
in  the  abandon  of  passionate  declaration.  So  long  had 
she  held  him  back  that  now  when  the  flood  came  it 
had  the  power  of  conserved  strength  bursting  a  dam 
in  wild  havoc.  "There  is  nothing  I  would  not  like  to 
do  for  you,  Mary!"  he  cried.  "I'd  like  to  pull  that 
pine  up  for  you,  even  if  it  bled  and  suffered !  I'd  like 
to  go  on  doing  things  for  you  forever!" 


LOOKING  OVER  PRECIPICES          181 

There  was  not  even  a  movement  of  her  lips  in  an- 
swer. It  seemed  to  her  now  that  there  on  the  precipice 
edge,  while  he  held  her  arm  in  his,  the  iridescent  house 
of  glass  had  fallen  about  them  in  a  confused,  dazzling 
shower  of  wreckage.  He  had  found  an  opening.  He 
had  broken  through  the  barrier. 

Half  unconscious  of  his  progress,  of  the  chasm  itself, 
she  waited  in  a  daze  and  came  out  of  it  to  see  him 
sweeping  his  hat  upward  from  beside  the  pine  before 
he  reached  as  far  as  he  could  among  the  branches  and, 
with  what  seemed  to  her  the  refinement  of  effrontery 
and  disregard  of  her  wishes,  broke  off  a  tawny  young 
branch.  He  waved  it  to  her — this  garland  of  conquest 
won  out  of  the  jaws  of  danger,  which  he  was  ready  to 
throw  at  her  feet  from  the  lists. 

"No,  no,  no!"   she  said,  half  aloud. 

She  saw  him  start  back  with  his  sure  steps,  his  shoul- 
ders swinging  with  the  lithe,  adaptable  movement  of 
his  body;  and  every  step  was  drawing  him  nearer  to 
a  meeting  which  would  be  like  no  other  between  them. 
Soon  he  would  be  crunching  the  glass  of  the  house 
under  that  confident  tread;  in  the  ecstasy  of  a  new 
part  he  would  be  before  the  opening  he  had  broken  in 
the  barrier  with  the  jauntiness  of  one  who  expected 
admission.  His  pulse-beat  under  the  touch  of  her  fin- 
gers at  the  precipice  edge,  his  artery-beat  in  the  arroyo, 
was  hammering  in  her  temples,  hammering  out  a  de- 
cision which,  when  it  came,  brought  her  to  her  feet. 

Now  the  shadows  were  deep;  all  the  glory  of  the 
sunset  in  the  Eternal  Painter's  chaotic  last  moments 
of  his  day's  work  overspread  the  western  sky,  and 
from  the  furnace  in  which  he  dipped  his  brush  came 
a  blade  of  rich,  blazing  gold  through  the  pass  and  lay 


182  OVER  THE  PASS 

across  the  trail.  It  enveloped  her  as,  half  running, 
mindless  of  her  footing,  slipping  as  she  went,  "she  hur- 
ried toward  the  other  side  of  Galeria. 

When  Jack  Wingfield  came  up  over  the  ledge,  a 
pine  tassel  in  his  hand,  his  languor  of  other  days  trans- 
formed into  high-strung,  triumphant  intensity,  the 
sparkle  of  a  splendid  hope  in  his  eyes,  only  Firio  was 
there  to  welcome  him. 

•  "Senorita  Ewold  said  she  no  could  wait,"  Firio  ex- 
plained. "It  was  very  late,  she  said." 

Jack  stopped  as  if  struck  and  his  features  became  a 
lifeless  mask,  as  lifeless  as  the  walls  of  the  canyon. 
He  looked  down  at  the  trophy  of  his  climb  and  ran  his 
fingers  over  the  needles  slowly,  again  and  again,  in 
abstraction. 

"I  understand!"  he  said,  half  to  himself ;  and  then 
aloud:  "Firio,  we  will  not  go  into  town  to-night. 
We  will  camp  on  the  other  side  by  the  river." 

"Si!  I  shot  enough  quail  this  afternoon  for  din- 
ner." 

But  Jack  did  not  have  much  appetite,  and  after 
dinner  he  did  not  amuse  Firio  with  inventions  of  his 
fancy.  He  lay  long  awake,  his  head  on  his  clasped 
hands,  looking  at  the  stars. 


XX 

A  PUZZLED  AMBASSADOR 

A  faint  aureole  of  light  crept  up  back  of  the  pass. 

"Dawn  at  last!"  Jack  breathed,  in  relief.  "Firio! 
Firio!  Up  with  you!" 

"Oh-yuh!"  yawned  Firio.  "Si,  si!"  he  said,  rising 
numbly  to  his  feet  and  rubbing  his  eyes  with  his  fists, 
while  he  tried  to  comprehend  an  astonishing  reversal 
of  custom.  Usually  he  awakened  his  camp-mate;  but 
this  morning  his  camp-mate  had  awakened  him.  A 
half  shadow  in  the  semi-darkness,  Jack  was  already 
throwing  the  saddle  over  P.  D.'s  back. 

"We  will  get  away  at  once,"  he  said. 

Firio  knew  that  something  strange  had  come  over 
Senor  Jack  after  he  had  met  Senorita  Ewold  on  the 
pass,  and  now  he  was  convinced  that  this  thing  had  been 
working  in  Sefior  Jack's  mind  all  night. 

"  Coffee  before  we  start?  "  he  inquired  ingratiatingly. 

"Coffee  at  the  ranch,"  Jack  answered. 

In  their  expeditious  preparations  for  departure  he 
hummed  no  snatches  of  song  as  a  paean  of  stretching 
muscles  and  the  expansion  of  his  being  with  the  full 
tide  of  the  conscious  life  of  day;  and  this,  too,  was 
contrary  to  custom. 

Before  it  was  fairly  light  they  were  on  the  road, 

with  Jack  urging  P.  D.  forward  at  a  trot.    The  silence 

was  soft  with  the  shimmer  of  dawn;  all  glistening  and 

still  the  roofs  and  trees  of  Little  Rivers  took  form. 

183 


184  OVER  THE  PASS 

The  moist  sweetness  of  its  gardens  perfumed  the  fresh 
morning  air  in  greeting  to  the  easy  traveller,  while  the 
makers  of  gardens  were  yet  asleep. 

It  was  the  same  hour  that  Mary  had  hurried  forth 
after  her  wakeful  night  to  stop  the  duel  in  the  arroyo. 
As  Jack  approached  the  Ewold  home  he  had  a  glimpse 
of  something  white,  a  woman's  gown  he  thought, 
that  disappeared  behind  the  vines.  He  concluded  that 
Mary  must  have  risen  early  to  watch  the  sunrise,  and 
drew  rein  opposite  the  porch;  but  through  the  lace- 
work  of  the  vines  he  saw  that  it  was  empty.  Yet  he 
was  positive  that  he  had  seen  her  and  that  she  must 
have  seen  him  coming.  She  was  missing  the  very 
glorious  moment  which  she  had  risen  to  see.  A  rim 
of  molten  gold  was  showing  in  the  defile  and  all  the 
summits  of  the  range  were  topped  with  flowing  fire. 

"Mary!"  he  called. 

There  was  no  answer.  Had  he  been  mistaken?  Had 
mental  suggestion  played  him  a  trick?  Had  his  eyes 
personified  a  wish  when  they  saw  a  figure  on  the  steps? 

"Mary!"  he  called  again,  and  his  voice  was  loud 
enough  for  her  to  have  heard  if  she  were  awake  and 
near.  Still  there  was  no  answer. 

The  pass  had  now  become  a  flaming  vortex  which 
bathed  him  in  its  far-spreading  radiance.  But  he  had 
lost  interest  in  sunrises.  A  last  backward,  hungry 
glance  over  his  shoulder  as  he  started  gave  him  a 
glimpse  through  the  open  door  of  the  living-room,  and 
he  saw  Mary  leaning  against  the  table  looking  down 
at  her  hands,  which  were  half  clasped  in  her  lap,  as  if 
she  were  waiting  for  him  to  get  out  of  the  way. 

Thus  he  understood  that  he  had  ended  their  comrade- 
ship when  he  had  broken  through  the  barrier  on  the 


A  PUZZLED  AMBASSADOR  185 

previous  afternoon,  and  the  only  thing  that  could 
bring  it  back  was  the  birth  of  a  feeling  in  her  greater 
than  comradeship.  His  shoulders  fell  together,  the 
reins  loosened,  while  P.  D.,  masterless  if  not  rider- 
less, proceeded  homeward. 

"Hello,  Jack!" 

It  was  the  greeting  of  Bob  Worther,  the  inspector 
of  ditches,  who  was  the  only  man  abroad  at  that  hour. 
Jack  looked  up  with  an  effort  to  be  genial  and  found 
Bob  closely  studying  his  features  in  a  stare. 

"What's  the  matter,  Bob?"  he  asked.  "Has  my 
complexion  turned  green  over  night  or  my  nose  slipped 
around  to  my  ear?  " 

"I  was  trying  to  make  out  if  you  do  look  like  him!" 
Bob  declared. 

"Like  whom?    What  the  deuce  is  the  mystery?" 

"What — why,  of  course  you're  the  most  interested 
party  and  the  only  Little  Riversite  that  don't  know 
about  it,  seh!" 

After  all,  there  was  some  compensation  for  early 
rising.  Bob  expanded  with  the  privilege  of  being  the 
first  to  break  the  news. 

"  If  you'd  come  yesterday  you'd  have  seen  him.  He 
went  by  the  noon  train,"  he  said,  and  proceeded  with 
the  story  of  Prather. 

Jack  had  never  heard  of  the  man  before  and  was  ob- 
viously uninterested.  He  did  not  seem  to  care  if  a 
dozen  doubles  came  to  town. 

"Oh,  yes,  there's  another  thing  concerning  you," 
Bob  continued.  "I  was  so  interested  in  telling  you 
about  Prather  that  I  near  forgot  it.  A  swell-looking 
fellow — says  he's  a  doctor  and  he's  got  New  York 


186  OVER  THE  PASS 

written  all  over  him — came  in  yesterday  particularly 
to  see  you." 

Though  it  was  a  saying  in  Little  Rivers  that  nobody 
ever  found  Jack  at  a  loss,  he  started  perceptibly  now. 
His  fingers  worked  nervously  on  the  reins  and  he  bit 
his  lips  in  irritation. 

"He  was  asking  a  lot  of  questions  about  you,"  Bob 
added. 

By  this  time  Jack  had  summoned  back  his  smile. 
He  did  not  seem  to  mind  if  a  dozen  doctors  came  to 
town  at  the  same  time  as  a  dozen  doubles. 

"Did  you  tell  him  that  I  had  a  cough — kuh-er?"  he 
asked,  casually. 

"Why,  no!  I  said  you  could  thrash  your  weight  in 
wildcats  and  he  says,  'Well,  he'll  have  to,  yet!'  and 
then  shut  up  as  if  he'd  overspoke  himself — and  I  judge 
that  he  ain't  the  kind  that  does  that  often.  But  say, 
Jack,"  Bob  demanded,  in  the  alarm  of  local  partisan- 
ship which  apprehends  that  it  may  unwittingly  have 
served  an  outside  interest,  "did  you  want  us  to  dope 
it  out  that  you  were  an  invalid?  We  ain't  been  getting 
you  in  wrong,  I  hope?" 

"Not  a  bit!"  answered  Jack  with  a  reassuring  slap 
on  Bob's  shoulder.  "Was  his  name  Bennington?" 

"Yes,  that's  it." 

"Well,"  said  Jack  thoughtfully  and  with  a  return 
of  his  annoyance,  "he  will  find  me  at  home  when  he 
calls."  And  P.  D.  knew  that  the  reins  were  still  held  in 
listless  hands  as  he  turned  down  the  side  street  toward 
the  new  ranch. 

Firio  was  feeling  like  an  astrologer  who  had  lost 
faith  in  his  crystal  ball.  An  interrogation  had  taken 


A  PUZZLED  AMBASSADOR  187 

the  place  of  his  confident  "Si,  si"  of  desert  understand- 
ing of  the  mind  of  his  patron.  Jack  had  broken  camp 
with  the  precipitancy  of  one  who  was  eager  to  be  quit 
of  the  trail  and  back  at  the  ranch;  yet  he  gave  his  young 
trees  only  a  passing  glance  before  entering  the  house. 
He  had  not  wanted  coffee  on  the  road,  yet  coffee  served 
with  the  crisp  odor  of  bacon  accompanying  its  aroma, 
after  his  bath  and  return  to  ranch  clothes,  found  no 
appetite.  He  was  as  a  man  whose  mind  cannot  hold 
fast  to  anything  that  he  is  doing.  Firio,  restless,  wor- 
ried, his  eyes  flicking  covert  glances,  was  frequently  in 
and  out  of  the  living-room  on  one  excuse  or  another. 

"What  work  to-day?"  he  asked,  as  he  cleared  away 
the  breakfast  dishes.  "What  has  Senor  Jack  planned 
for  us  to  do?" 

"The  work  to-day?  The  work  to-day?"  Jack  re- 
peated absently.  "First  the  mail."  He  nodded  to- 
ward a  pile  on  the  table. 

"And  I  shall  make  ready  to  stay  a  long  time?" 
Firio  insinuated  softly. 

"No!"  Jack  answered  to  space. 

The  pyramid  of  mail  might  have  been  a  week's 
batch  for  the  Doge  himself.  At  the  bottom  were  a 
number  of  books  and  above  them  magazines  which 
Jack  had  subscribed  for  when  he  found  that  they  were 
not  on  the  Doge's  list.  There  was  only  one  letter  as 
a  first-class  postage  symbol  of  the  exile's  intimacy  with 
the  outside  world,  and  out  of  this  tumbled  a  check  and 
a  blank  receipt  to  be  filled  in.  He  tore  off  the  wrap- 
pers of  the  magazines  as  a  means  of  some  sort  of  physi- 
cal occupation  and  rolled  them  into  balls,  which  he 
cast  at  the  waste-basket;  but  neither  the  contents  of 
the  magazines  nor  those  of  the  newspapers  seemed  to 


188  OVER  THE  PASS 

interest  him.  His  aspect  was  that  of  one  waiting  in 
a  lobby  to  keep  an  appointment. 

When  he  heard  steps  on  the  porch  he  sang  out  cheer- 
ily, "Come  in!"  but,  contrary  to  the  habit  of  Little 
Rivers  hospitality,  he  did  not  hasten  to  meet  his  caller, 
and  any  keenness  of  anticipation  which  he  may  have 
felt  was  well  masked. 

There  entered  a  man  of  middle  age,  with  close- 
cropped  gray  beard,  clad  in  soft  flannels,  the  trousers 
bottoms  turned  up  in  New  York  fashion  for  negligee 
business  suits  for  that  spring.  To  the  simple  interior 
of  a  western  ranch  house  he  brought  the  atmosphere 
of  complex  civilization  as  a  thing  ineradicably  bred 
into  his  being.  It  was  evident,  too,  that  he  had  been 
used  to  having  his  arrival  in  any  room  a  moment  of 
importance  which  summoned  the  rapt  attention  of 
everybody,  whether  nurses,  fellow  physicians,  or  the 
members  of  the  patient's  family.  But  this  time  that 
was  lacking.  The  young  man  leaning  against  the  table 
was  not  visibly  impressed. 

.  "Hello,  doctor!"  said  Jack,  as  unconcernedly  as  he 
would  have  passed  the  time  of  day  with  Jim  Galway 
in  the  street. 

^  "Hello,  Jack!"  said  the  doctor, 
i  Jack  went  just  half-way  across  the  room  to  shake 
hands.    Then  he  dropped  back  to  his  easy  position, 
with  the  table  as  a  rest,  after  he  had  set  a  chair  for 
the  visitor. 

"How  do  you  like  Little  Rivers?"  Jack  asked. 

"I  have  been  here  only  thirty-six  hours,"  answered 
the  doctor,  avoiding  a  direct  answer.  He  was  pull- 
ing off  his  silk  summer  gloves,  making  the  operation  a 
trifle  elaborate,  one  which  seemed  to  require  much  at- 


A  PUZZLED  AMBASSADOR  189 

tention.  "I  came  pretty  near  mistaking  another  man 
for  you,  but  his  mole  patch  saved  me.  I  didn't  think 
you  could  have  grown  one  out  here.  Wonderfully  like 
you !  Have  you  met  him?  " 

He  glanced  up  as  he  asked  this  question,  which  seemed 
the  first  to  occur  to  him  as  a  warming-up  topic  of  con- 
versation before  he  came  to  the  business  in  hand. 

"No.    I  have  just  heard  of  him,"  Jack  answered. 

The  doctor  smiled  at  his  gloves,  which  he  now  folded 
and  put  in  his  pocket.  Don't  the  lecturers  to  young 
medical  students  say,  "Divert  your  patient's  mind  to 
some  topic  other  than  himself  as  you  get  your  first  im- 
pression"? Now  Dr.  Bennington  drew  forward  in 
his  chair,  rested  the  tips  of  the  long  fingers  of  a  soft, 
capable  hand  on  the  edge  of  the  table,  and  looked  up 
to  Jack  in  professional  candor,  sweeping  him  with  the 
knowing  eye  of  the  modern  confessor  of  the  secrets  of 
all  manner  of  mankind.  With  the  other  hand  he  drew 
a  stethoscope  from  his  side  coat-pocket. 

"Well,  Jack,  you  can  guess  what  brought  me  all  the 
way  from  New  York — just  five  minutes'  work!"  and  he 
gave  the  symbol  of  examination  a  flourish  in  emphasis. 

"  I  don't  think  I  have  forgotten  the  etiquette  of  the 
patient  on  such  occasions,"  Jack  returned.  "It  is  an 
easy  function  in  this  Arizona  climate." 

He  drew  his  shirt  up  from  a  compact  loin  and  lean 
middle,  revealing  the  arch  of  his  deep  chest,  the  flesh 
of  which  was  healthy  pink  under  neck  and  face  plated 
with  Indian  tan.  The  doctor's  eyes  lighted  with  the 
bliss  of  a  critic  used  to  searching  for  flaws  at  sight  of 
a  masterpiece.  While  he  conducted  the  initial  plot- 
tings  with  the  rubber  cup  which  carried  sounds  to  one 
of  the  most  expensive  senses  of  hearing  in  America, 


190  OVER  THE  PASS 

Jack  was  gazing  out  of  the  window,  as  if  his  mind  were 
far  away  across  the  cactus-spotted  levels. 

"Breathe  deep!"   commanded  the  doctor. 

Jack's  nostrils  quivered  with  the  indrawing  of  a  great 
gust  of  air  and  his  diaphragm  swelled  until  his  ribs  were 
like  taut  bowstrings. 

"And  you  were  the  pasty-faced  weakling  that  left 
my  office  five  years  ago — and  you,  you  husky  giant, 
have  brought  me  two  thousand  miles  to  see  if  you  were 
really  convalescent!" 

"I  hope  the  trip  will  do  you  good!"  said  Jack, 
sweetly. 

"  But  it  is  great  news  that  I  take  back,  great  news ! " 
said  the  doctor,  as  he  put  the  stethoscope  in  his  pocket. 

"Yes?"  returned  Jack,  slipping  his  head  through 
his  shirt.  "You  don't  find  even  a  speck?" 

"Not  a  speck!  No  sign  of  the  lesion!  There  is  no 
reason  why  you  should  not  have  gone  home  long  ago." 

"No?"  Jack  was  fastening  his  string  tie  and  doing 
this  with  something  of  the  urban  nicety  with  which 
the  doctor  had  folded  his  gloves.  That  tie  was  one 
of  the  few  inheritances  from  complex  civilization  which 
still  had  Jack's  favor. 

"What  have  you  found  to  do  all  these  years?" 

Jack  was  surprised  at  the  question. 

"  I  have  just  wandered  about  and  read  and  thought," 
he  explained. 

"Without  developing  any  sense  of  responsibility?" 
demanded  the  doctor  in  exasperation. 

"  I  have  tried  to  be  good  to  my  horses,  and  of  late 
I  have  taken  to  ranching.  There  is  a  lot  of  responsi- 
bility in  that  and  care,  too.  Take  the  scale,  for  in- 
stance!" 


A  PUZZLED  AMBASSADOR  191 

"A  confounded  little  ranch  out  in  this  God-forsaken 
place,  that  a  Swede  immigrant  might  run!" 

"No,  the  Swedes  aren't  particularly  good  at  irriga- 
tion, though  better  than  the  Dutch.  You  see,  the 
Hollanders  are  used  to  having  so  much  water  that " 

Jack  was  leaning  idly  against  the  table  again.  The 
fashionable  practitioner,  accustomed  to  having  his 
words  accepted  at  their  cost  price  in  gold,  broke  in 
hotly: 

"It  is  past  all  understanding!  You,  the  heir  to 
twenty  millions!" 

"Is  it  twenty  now?"    Jack  asked  softly  and  sadly. 

"  Nearer  thirty,  probably !  And  shirking  your  duty ! 
Shirking  and  for  what — for  what?" 

Jack  faced  around.  The  doctor,  meeting  a  calm 
eye  that  was  quizzically  challenging,  paused  abruptly, 
feeling  that  in  some  way  he  had  been  caught  at  a  pro- 
fessional disadvantage  in  his  outburst  of  emotion. 

"Don't  you  like  Little  Rivers?"   asked  Jack. 

"I  should  be  bored  to  death!"  the  doctor  admitted, 
honestly. 

"Well,  you  see  this  air  never  healed  a  lesion  for  you! 
You  never  uttered  a  prayer  to  it  for  strength  with  every 
breath!  And,  doctor,"  Jack  hesitated,  while  his  lips 
were  half  open,  showing  his  even  teeth  slightly  apart 
in  the  manner  of  a  break  in  a  story  to  the  children 
where  he  expected  them  to  be  very  attentive  to  what 
was  coming,  "you  can  take  a  piece  of  tissue  and  an- 
alyze it,  yes,  a  piece  of  brain  tissue  and  find  all  the 
blood-vessels,  but  not  what  a  man  was  thinking,  can 
you?  Until  you  can  take  a  precipitate  of  his  thoughts 
— the  very  thoughts  he  is  unconscious  of  himself — and 
put  them  under  a  microscope,  why,  there  must  be  a 


192  OVER  THE  PASS 

lot  of  guesswork  about  the  source  of  all  unconventional 
human  actions." 

Jack  laughed  over  his  invasion  of  psychology;  and 
when  he  laughed  in  a  certain  way  the  impulse  to 
join  him  was  strong,  as  Mary  first  found  on  the  pass. 
So  the  doctor  laughed,  partly  in  relief,  perhaps,  that 
this  uncertain  element  which  he  was  finding  in  Jack 
had  not  yet  proved  explosive. 

"That  would  make  a  capital  excuse  for  a  student 
flunking  in  examinations!"  he  said. 

"It  might  be  a  worthy  one — not  that  I  say  it  ought 
to  pass  him." 

"Now,  Jack,"  the  doctor  began  afresh,  the  reassur- 
ing force  of  his  personality  again  in  play. 

He  took  a  step  and  raised  his  hands  as  if  he  would 
put  them  on  Jack's  shoulders.  One  could  imagine 
him  driving  hypochondria  out  of  many  a  patient's 
mind  by  thus  making  his  own  vigorous  optimism  flow 
down  from  his  fingertips,  while  he  looked  into  the 
patient's  eye.  But  his  hands  remained  in  the  air, 
though  Jack  had  been  only  smiling  at  him.  This  was 
not  the  way  to  handle  this  patient,  something  told  his 
trained,  sensitive  instinct  in  time,  and  he  let  his  hands 
fall  in  semblance  of  a  gesture  of  protest,  gave  a  shrug 
and  came  directly  to  the  point  very  genuinely. 

"Well,  Jack— your  father!" 

"Yes."  And  Jack's  face  was  still  and  blank,  while 
shadows  played  over  it  in  a  war  among  themselves. 
"He  did  not  even  tell  me  you  were  coming,"  he  added. 

"Perhaps  he  feared  that  it  would  give  you  time  to 
develop  a  cough  or  you  would  start  overland  to  Chi- 
huahua so  I  should  miss  you.  Jack,  he  needs  you! 
All  that  fortune  waits  for  you!" 


A  PUZZLED  AMBASSADOR  193 

"Now  that  I  am  strong,  yes!  He  did  not  come  out 
to  see  me  even  during  the  first  year  when  I  had  not  the 
nealth  to  go  to  him,  nor  did  he  think  to  come  with 
you." 

"He — he  is  a  very  busy  man!"  explained  the  doctor, 
in  ready  championship.  And  yet  he  looked  away 
from  Jack,  and  when  he  looked  back  it  was  with  an 
appeal  to  conscience  rather  than  to  filial  affection. 
"Is  it  right  to  remain,  however  much  you  like  this 
desert  life?  Have  you  any  excuse?" 

"Yes,  an  overwhelming  one!"  exclaimed  Jack  in 
a  voice  that  was  high-pitched  and  determined,  while 
his  eyes  burned  and  no  trace  of  humor  remained  on 
lips  that  were  as  firm  as  the  outline  of  his  chin.  "Yes, 
one  that  thrills  me  from  head  to  foot  with  the  steady 
ardor  of  the  soldier  who  makes  a  siege!" 

"I — I — you  are  beyond  me!  Then  you  will  stay? 
You  are  not  coming  home?" 

"Yes,"  Jack  answered,  in  another  mood,  but  one 
equally  rigid.  "I  am  coming  at  once.  That  was  all 
settled  last  night  under  the  stars.  I  have  found  the 
courage!" 

"The  courage  to  go  to  twenty  millions!"  gasped  the 
doctor.  "But — good!  You  will  go!  That  is  enough ! 
Why  shouldn't  we  take  the  same  train  back?"  he 
went  on  enthusiastically.  "  I  shall  be  coming  through 
here  in  less  than  a  week.  You  see,  I  am  so  near  Cali- 
fornia that  I  simply  had  to  steal  a  few  days  with  my 
sister,  who  can't  come  East  on  account  of  her  health. 
I  have  been  so  tied  down  to  practice  that  I  have  not 
seen  her  for  fifteen  years.  That  will  give  you  time 
to  arrange  your  affairs.  How  about  it?" 

"It  would  be  delightful,  but — "  Jack  was  hesitating. 


194  OVER  THE  PASS 

"No,  I  will  refuse.  You  see,  I  rode  horseback  when  I 
entered  this  valley  for  the  first  time  and  I  should  like 
to  ride  out  in  the  way  I  came.  Just  sentiment!" 

"Jack!"  exclaimed  the  doctor. 

He  was  casting  about  how  to  express  his  suspicion 
when  something  electric  checked  him — a  current  that 
began  in  Jack's  measured  glance.  Jack  was  not  men- 
tioning that  his  word  was  being  questioned,  but  some- 
thing still  and  effective  that  came  from  far  away  out 
on  the  untrod  desert  was  in  the  room.  It  fell  on  the 
nerves  of  the  ambassador  from  the  court  of  complex 
civilization  like  a  sudden  hush  on  a  city's  traffic.  Jack 
broke  the  silence  by  asking,  in  a  tone  of  lively  hospi- 
tality: 

"You  will  join  me  at  luncheon?" 

"I  should  like  to,"  answered  the  doctor,  "but  I  can 
catch  a  train  on  the  other  trunk  line  that  will  give  me 
a  few  more  hours  with  my  sister.  And  what  shall  I 
wire  your  father?  Have  you  any  suggestion?" 

"Why,  that  he  will  be  able  to  judge  for  himself  in 
a  few  days  how  near  cured  I  am." 

"You  will  wire  him  the  date  of  your  arrival?" 

"Yes." 

"Jack,"  said  the  doctor  at  the  door,  "that  remark 
of  yours  about  the  analysis  of  brain  tissue  and  of  thought 
put  a  truth  very  happily.  Come  and  see  me  and  let 
me  know  how  you  get  on.  Good-by!" 

He  took  his  departure  thoughtfully,  rather  than  with 
a  sense  of  triumph  over  the  success  of  a  two-thousand- 
mile  mission  in  the  name  of  twenty  millions. 


XXI 
"GOOD-BY,  LITTLE  RIVERS!" 

It  was  the  thing  thrilling  hiril  with  the  ardor  of  a 
soldier  preparing  for  a  siege  that  sent  Jack  to  the 
Ewolds'  later  in  the  morning.  He  had  come  deter- 
mined to  finish  the  speech  that  he  had  called  up  to 
Mary  from  the  canyon.  As  he  crossed  the  cement 
bridge,  Ignacio  appeared  on  the  path  and  took  his  posi- 
tion there  obdurately,  instead  of  standing  to  one  side 
with  a  nod,  as  usual,  to  let  the  caller  pass. 

"Senorita  Ewold  is  not  at  home!"  he  announced, 
before  Jack  had  spoken. 

"Not  even  in  the  garden?" 

"No,  senor." 

"But  she  will  be  back  soon?" 

"I  do  not  think  so." 

Ignacio's  face  was  as  blank  as  a  wall,  but  knowingly, 
authoritatively  blank.  His  brown  eyes  glistened  with 
cold  assurance.  He  seemed  to  have  become  the  in- 
terpreter of  a  message  in  keeping  with  Mary's  flight 
from  the  pass  and  her  withdrawal  from  the  porch  when 
she  had  seen  Jack  approaching.  Here  was  a  new  bar- 
rier which  did  not  permit  even  banter  across  the  crest. 
She  must  know  that  he  was  going,  for  the  news  of  his 
approaching  departure  had  already  spread  through  the 
town.  She  had  chosen  not  to  see  him  again,  even  for 
a  farewell. 

For  a  little  time  he  stood  in  thought,  while  Ignacio 
195 


196  OVER  THE  PASS 

remained  steadfast  on  the  path,  watchful,  perhaps,  for 
the  devil  in  Seiior  Don't  Care  to  appear.  Suddenly 
Jack's  features  glowed  with  action;  he  took  a  step  as 
if  he  would  sweep  by  Ignacio  on  into  the  garden.  But 
the  impulse  instantly  passed.  He  stopped,  his  face 
drawn  as  it  had  been  when  he  fell  limp  against  the 
hedge  stricken  by  the  horror  of  his  seeming  brutality 
to  Pedro  Nogales,  and  turned  away  into  the  street  with 
a  mask  of  smiles  for  the  greetings  and  regrets  of  the 
friends  whom  he  met. 

Worth  twenty  millions  or  twenty  cents,  he  was  still 
Jack  to  Little  Rivers;  still  the  knight  who  had  come 
over  the  range  to  vanquish  Pete  Leddy;  still  a  fellow- 
rancher  in  the  full  freemasonry  of  calloused  hands; 
still  the  joyous  teller  of  stories.  The  thought  of  los- 
ing him  set  tendrils  in  the  ranchers'  hearts  twitch- 
ing in  sympathy  with  tendrils  in  his  own,  which  he 
found  rooted  very  deep  now  that  he  must  tear  them 
out. 

That  afternoon  at  the  appointed  hour  for  his  depar- 
ture every  man,  woman,  and  child  had  assembled  at 
the  end  of  the  main  street,  where  it  broke  into  the 
desert  trail.  The  principal  found  an  excuse  for  dis- 
missing school  an  hour  earlier  than  usual.  That  is, 
everyone  was  present  except  Mary.  The  Doge  came, 
if  a  little  late,  to  fulfil  his  function  as  chosen  spokes- 
man for  all  in  bidding  Jack  Godspeed  on  his  journey. 

"Senor  Don't  Care,  you  are  a  part  of  the  history  of 
Little  Rivers!"  he  said,  airily.  "You  have  brought 
us  something  which  we  lacked  in  our  singularly  peace- 
ful beginning.  Without  romance,  sir,  no  community 
is  complete.  I  have  found  you  a  felicitous  disputant 
whom  I  shall  miss;  for  you  leave  me  to  provide  the 


"GOOD-BY,  LITTLE  RIVERS!"         197 

arguments  on  both  sides  of  a  subject  on  the  same  even- 
ing. Our  people  have  found  you  a  neighbor  of  infinite 
resources  of  humor  and  cheer.  We  wish  you  a  pleas- 
ant trail.  We  wish  you  warm  sunshine  when  the 
weather  is  chill  and  shade  when  the  weather  is  hot,  and 
that  you  shall  ever  travel  with  a  singing  heart,  while 
old  age  never  overtakes  the  fancy  of  youth." 

Every  one  of  the  familiar  faces  grouped  around  the 
fine,  cultured  old  face  of  the  Doge  expressed  the 
thoughts  to  which  he  had  given  form. 

"May  your  arguments  be  as  thick  as  fireflies,  O 
Doge  1 "  Jack  answered,  "  every  one  bearing  a  torch  to 
illumine  the  outer  darkness  of  ignorance!  May  every 
happy  thought  I  have  for  Little  Rivers  spring  up  in 
a  date-tree  wonderful!  Then,  before  the  year  is  out, 
you  will  have  a  forest  of  date-trees  stretching  from 
foothills  to  foothills,  across  the  whole  valley." 

"And  one  more  about  the  giant  with  the  little  voice 
and  the  dwarf  with  the  big  voice  and  the  cat  with  the 
stripes  down  her  back!"  cried  Belvy  Smith,  spokes- 
woman for  the  children.  "Are  they  just  going  on  for- 
ever having  adventures  and  us  never  knowing  about 
them?" 

"No.  I  have  been  holding  back  the  last  story," 
Jack  said.  "  Both  the  giant  and  the  dwarf  were  getting 
old,  as  you  all  know,  and  they  were  pretty  badly  bat- 
tered up  from  their  continual  warfare.  Why,  the  scar 
which  the  giant  got  on  his  forehead  in  their  last  battle 
was  so  big  that  if  the  dwarf  had  had  it  there  would  have 
been  no  top  left  to  his  head.  After  the  cat  had  lost 
that  precious  black  tip  to  her  tail  she  became  more 
and  more  thoughtful.  She  made  up  her  mind  to  re- 
tire and  reform  and  have  a  permanent  home.  And 


198  OVER  THE  PASS 

you  know  what  a  gift  she  had  for  planning  out  things 
and  how  clever  she  was  about  getting  her  own  way. 
Now  she  sat  in  a  hedge  corner  thinking  and  thinking 
and  looking  at  the  stubby  end  of  her  tail,  and  suddenly 
she  cried,  'Eureka!'  And  what  do  you  think  she  did? 
She  went  to  a  paint  shop  and  had  her  left  ear  painted 
yellow  and  her  right  ear  painted  green.  So,  now  you 
can  see  her  any  day  sunning  herself  on  the  steps  of  the 
cottage  where  the  giant  and  the  dwarf  live  in  peace. 
Whenever  they  have  an  inclination  to  quarrel  she 
jumps  between  them  and  wiggles  the  yellow  ear  at  the 
giant  and  the  green  ear  at  the  dwarf,  which  fusses  them 
both  so  that  they  promise  to  be  good  and  rush  off  to 
get  her  a  saucer  of  milk." 

"A  green  ear  and  a  yellow  ear!  What  a  funny  look- 
ing cat  she  must  be!"  exclaimed  Belvy. 

"So  she  says  to  herself  between  purrs,"  concluded 
Jack.  "But  she  is  a  philosopher  and  knows  that  she 
would  look  still  funnier  if  she  had  lost  her  ears  as  Jag 
Ear  has.  Good-by,  children!  Good-by,  everybody! 
Good-by,  Little  Rivers!" 

Jack  gave  P.  D.  a  signal  and  the  crowd  broke  into 
a  cheer,  which  was  punctuated  by  the  music  of  Jag 
Ear's  bells  as  his  burrohood  got  in  motion.  The 
Doge,  who  had  brought  his  horse,  mounted. 

"I  will  ride  a  little  distance  with  you,"  he  said. 

He  appeared  like  a  man  who  had  a  great  deal  on  his 
mind  and  yet  was  at  a  loss  for  words.  There  was  the 
unprecedented  situation  of  silence  between  the  two 
exponents  of  persiflage  in  Little  Rivers. 

"I — "  he  began,  and  paused  as  if  the  subject  were 
too  big  for  him  and  it  were  better  not  to  begin  at  all. 
Then  he  drew  rein. 


"GOOD-BY,  LITTLE  RIVERS!"         199 

"Luck,  Jack!"  he  said,  simply,  and  there  was  some- 
thing like  pity  in  his  tone. 

"And  Mary — you  will  say  good-by  to  her  and  thank 
her!"  said  Jack. 

"I  think  you  may  meet  her,"  answered  the  Doge. 
"She  went  away  early  taking  her  luncheon,  before  she 
knew  that  you  were  going." 

So  Ignacio  had  been  acting  on  his  own  authority! 
The  thrill  of  the  news  singing  in  Jack's  veins  was  too 
overwhelming  for  him  to  notice  the  challenge  and  ap- 
prehension in  the  Doge's  glance.  The  Doge  saw  the 
glow  of  a  thousand  happy,  eager  thoughts  in  Jack's 
face.  He  hesitated  again  on  the  brink  of  speech,  be- 
fore, with  a  toss  of  his  leonine  head  as  if  he  were  veri- 
tably leaving  fate's  affairs  to  fate,  he  turned  to  go;  and 
Jack  mechanically  touched  P.  D.'s  rein,  while  he  gazed 
toward  the  pass.  P.  D.  had  not  gone  many  steps 
when  Jack  heard  the  same  sonorous  call  that  had 
greeted  him  that  first  night  when  he  stopped  before 
the  door  of  the  E wolds;  the  call  of  a  great,  infectious 
fellowship  between  men: 

"Luck,  Sir  Chaps!  I  defy  you  to  wear  your  spurs 
up  the  Avenue!  Give  my  love  to  that  new  Campanile 
in  Babylon,  the  Metropolitan  tower!  Get  it  in  the 
mist!  Get  it  under  the  sun  I  Kiss  your  hand  to  golden 
Diana,  huntress  of  Manhattan's  winds!  Say  ahoy  to 
old  Farragut!  And  on  gray  days  have  a  look  for  me  at 
the  new  Sorollas  in  the  Museum!  Luck,  Sir  Chaps!" 

"Good  crops  and  a  generous  mail,  O  Doge!" 

Jack  rode  fast,  in  the  gladness  of  a  hope  this  side  of 
the  pass  and  in  the  face  of  shadows  on  the  other  side 
which  he  did  not  attempt  to  define.  To  Firio  he  seemed 
to  have  grown  taller  and  older. 


xxn 

"LUCK,  JACK,  LUCKI" 

Apprehensively  he  watched  the  end  of  the  ribbon 
running  under  P.  D.'s  hoofs  for  the  sight  of  a  horse- 
woman breaking  free  of  the  foothills.  The  momentary 
fear  which  rode  with  him  was  that  Mary  might  be  re- 
turning earlier  than  usual.  If  they  met  on  the  road — • 
why,  the  road  was  without  imagination  and,  in  keeping 
with  her  new  attitude  toward  him,  she  might  pass  him 
by  with  a  nod.  But  at  the  top  of  the  pass  imagina- 
tion would  be  supreme.  There  they  had  first  met; 
there  they  had  found  their  first  thought  in  common  in 
the  ozone  which  had  meant  life  to  them  both. 

He  did  not  look  up  at  the  sky  changes.  As  he 
climbed  the  winding  path  worn  by  moccasined  feet  be- 
fore the  Persians  marched  to  Thermopylse,  his  mind  was 
too  occupied  making  pictures  of  its  own  in  glowing 
anticipation  to  have  any  interest  in  outside  pictures. 
This  path  was  narrow.  Here,  at  least,  she  must  pause; 
and  she  must  listen.  Every  turn  which  showed  an- 
other empty  stretch  ahead  sent  his  spirits  soaring. 
Then  he  saw  a  pony  with  an  empty  side-saddle  on  the 
shelf.  A  few  steps  more  and  he  saw  Mary. 

She  was  seated  with  the  defile  at  her  back,  her  hands 
clasped  over  her  knee.  In  this  position,  as  in  every 
position  which  she  naturally  took,  she  had  a  pliant  and 
personal  grace.  The  welter  of  light  of  the  low  sun 
was  ablaze  in  her  face.  Her  profile  had  a  luminous 
200 


"LUCK,  JACK,  LUCK!"  201 

wistfulness.  Her  lashes  were  half  closed,  at  once  re- 
taining the  vision  of  the  panorama  at  her  feet  as  a 
thing  of  atmospheric  enjoyment  and  shutting  it  out 
from  the  intimacy  of  her  thoughts.  And  more  en- 
veloping than  the  light  was  the  silence  which  held 
her  in  a  spell  as  still  as  the  rocks  themselves,  waiting 
on  time's  dispensation  where  time  was  nothing.  Yet 
the  soft  movement  of  her  bosom  -with  her  even  breaths 
triumphed  in  a  life  supreme  and  palpitant  over  all  that 
dead  world. 

Thus  he  drank  her  in  before  the  crunch  of  a  stone 
under  his  heel  warned  her  of  his  presence  and  set  her 
breaths  going  and  coming  in  quick  gusts  as  she  wheeled 
around,  half  rising  and  then  dropping  back  to  a  po- 
sition as  still  as  before,  with  a  trace  of  new  dignity  in 
her  grace,  while  her  starkness  of  inquiry  gradually 
changed  to  stoicism. 

"Mary,  I  came  upon  you  very  suddenly,"  he  said. 

"Yes" — a  bare,  echoing  monosyllable. 

He  stepped  to  one  side  to  let  Firio  and  his  little 
cavalcade  pass.  All  the  while  she  continued  to  look 
at  him  through  the  screen  of  her  half-closed  lashes  in 
a  way  that  set  her  repose  and  charm  apart  as  some- 
thing precious  and  cold  and  baffling.  Now  he  realized 
that  he  had  made  a  breach  in  the  barrier  of  their  old 
relations  only  to  find  himself  in  a  garden  whose  flowers 
fell  to  ashes  at  his  touch.  He  saw  the  light  that  en- 
veloped her  as  an  armor  far  less  vulnerable  than  any 
wall,  and  the  splendor  of  her  was  growing  in  his  eyes. 

Jag  Ear's  bells  with  their  warm  and  merry  notes 
became  a  faint  tinkle  that  was  lost  in  the  depths  of 
the  defile.  The  two  were  alone  on  the  spot  where  the 
Eternal  Painter  had  introduced  them  so  simply  as 


202  OVER  THE  PASS 

Jack  and  Mary,  and  where  he,  as  the  easy  traveller, 
had  listened  to  her  plead  for  his  own  life.  It  was  his 
turn  to  plead.  She  was  not  to  be  won  by  fighting 
Leddys  or  tearing  up  pine-trees  by  their  roots.  That 
armor  was  without  a  joint;  a  lance  would  bend  like 
so  much  tin  against  its  plates,  and  yet  there  must  be 
some  alchemy  that  would  make  it  melt  as  a  mist 
before  the  sun.  It  was  tenanted  by  a  being  all  sen- 
tiency,  which  saw  him  through  her  visor  as  a  passer-by 
in  a  gallery.  But  one  in  armor  does  not  fly  from 
passers-by  as  she  had  flown  while  he  was  climbing  up 
the  canyon  wall  with  his  pine-tree  branch. 

"I  have  learned  now  to  look  over  any  kind  of  a 
precipice  without  getting  dizzy,"  she  announced, 
quietly. 

He  was  not  the  Jack  who  had  come  over  the  ledge 
in  the  energy  of  his  passion  yesterday  to  find  her  gone. 
He  had  turned  gentle  and  was  smiling  with  craved  per- 
mission for  a  respite  from  her  evident  severity  as  he 
dropped  to  a  half-lying  posture  near  her.  Overhead, 
the  Eternal  Painter  was  throwing  in  the  smoky  purple 
of  a  false  thunderhead,  sweeping  it  away  with  the 
promise  of  a  downpour,  rolling  in  piles  of  silver  clouds 
and  drawing  them  out  into  filmy  fingers  melting  into 
a  luminous  blue. 

"One  can  never  tire  of  this,"  he  said,  tentatively. 

"To  me  it  is  all!"  she  answered,  in  an  absorption 
with  the  scene  that  made  him  as  inconsequential  as 
the  rocks  around  her. 

"And  you  never  long  for  cities,  with  their  swift  cur- 
rents and  busy  eddies?"  he  asked. 

"Cities  are  life,  the  life  of  humanity,  and  I  am 
human.  I — "  The  unfinished  sentence  sank  into 


"LUCK,  JACK,  LUCK!"  203 

the  silence  of  things  inexpressible  or  which  it  was  pur- 
poseless to  express. 

Her  voice  suggested  the  tinkle  of  Jag  Ear's  bells 
floating  away  into  space.  If  a  precipitate  were  taken 
from  her  forehead,  in  keeping  with  Jack's  suggestion 
to  Dr.  Bennington,  it  would  have  been  mercury,  which 
is  so  tangible  to  the  eye  and  -intangible  to  the  touch. 
Press  it  and  it  breaks  into  little  globules,  only  to  be 
shaken  together  in  a  coherent  whole.  If  there  is  joy 
or  pain  in  the  breaking,  either  one  must  be  glittering 
and  immeasurable. 

"But  Little  Rivers  is  best,"  she  added  after  a  time, 
speaking  not  to  him,  but  devoutly  to  the  oasis  of  green. 

In  the  crystal  air  Little  Rivers  seemed  so  near  that 
one  could  touch  the  roofs  of  the  houses  with  the  finger- 
tips of  an  extended  arm,  and  yet  so  diminutive  in  the 
spacious  bosom  of  the  plateau  that  it  might  be  set  in 
the  palm  of  the  hand. 

Jack  was  as  one  afraid  of  his  own  power  of  speech. 
A  misplaced  word  might  send  her  away  as  oblivious 
of  him  as  a  globule  of  mercury  rolling  free  from  the 
grasp.  Here  was  a  Mary  unfathomed  of  all  his  hazards 
of  study,  undreamed  of  in  all  his  flights  of  fancy. 

"It  is  my  last  view,"  he  began.  "I  have  said  all  my 
good-bys  in  town.  I  am  going." 

Covertly,  fearfully,  he  watched  the  effect  of  the 
news.  At  least  now  she  would  look  around  at  him. 
He  would  no  longer  have  to  talk  to  a  profile  and  to 
the  golden  mist  of  the  horizon  about  the  greatest  thing 
of  his  life.  But  there  was  no  sign  of  surprise;  not  even 
an  inclination  of  her  head. 

"Yes,"  she  told  the  horizon;  and  after  a  little  silence 
added:  "The  time  has  come  to  play  another  part?" 


204  OVER  THE  PASS 

She  asked  the  question  of  the  horizon,  without  any 
trace  of  the  old  banter  over  the  wall.  She  asked  it 
in  confirmation  of  a  commonplace. 

"I  know  that  you  have  always  thought  of  me  as 
playing  a  part.  But  I  am  not  my  own  master.  I 
must  go.  I " 

"Back  to  your  millions!"  She  finished  the  sentence 
for  him. 

"Then  you — you  knew!  You  knew!"  But  his  ex- 
clamation of  astonishment  did  not  move  her  to  a  glance 
in  his  direction  or  even  a  tremor. 

"Yes,"  she  went  on.  "Father  told  me  about  your 
millions  last  night.  He  has  known  from  the  first  who 
you  were." 

"And  he  told  no  one  else  in  Little  Rivers?  He 
never  mentioned  it  to  me  or  even  to  you  before!" 

"Why  should  he  when  you  did  not  mention  it  your- 
self? His  omission  was  natural  delicacy,  in  keeping 
with  your  own  attitude.  Isn't  it  part  of  the  custom 
of  Little  Rivers  that  pasts  melt  into  the  desert?  There 
is  no  standard  except  the  conduct  of  the  present!" 

And  all  this  speech  was  in  a  monotone  of  quiet  ex- 
planation. 

"He  did  not  even  tell  you  until  last  night !  Until  after 
our  meeting  on  the  other  side  of  the  pass !  It  is  strange ! 
strange!"  he  repeated  in  the  insistence  of  wonder. 

He  saw  the  lashes  part  a  little,  then  quiver  and  close 
as  she  lifted  her  gaze  from  the  horizon  rim  to  the  vor- 
tex of  the  sun.  Then  she  smiled  wearily. 

"He  likes  a  joke,"  she  said.  "Probably  he  enjoyed 
his  knowledge  of  your  secret  and  wanted  to  see  if  I 
would  guess  the  truth  before  you  were  through  play- 
ing your  part." 


"LUCK,  JACK,  LUCK!"  205 

"But  the  part  was  not  a  part!"  he  said,  with  the 
emphasis  of  fire  creeping  along  a  fuse.  "It  was  real. 
I  do  not  want  to  leave  Little  Rivers!" 

"Not  in  your  present  enthusiasm,"  she  returned 
with  a  warning  inflection  of  literalness,  when  he  would 
have  welcomed  satire,  anger,  or  any  reprisal  of  words 
as  something  live  and  warm;  something  on  which  his 
mind  could  lay  definite  hold. 

In  her  impersonal  calm  she  was  subjecting  him  to 
an  exquisite  torture.  He  was  a  man  flayed  past  all 
endurance,  flayed  by  a  love  that  fed  on  the  revelation 
of  a  mystery  in  her  being  superbly  in  control.  The 
riot  of  all  the  colors  of  the  sky  spoke  from  his  eyes  as 
he  sprang  to  his  feet.  He  became  as  intense  as  in  the 
supreme  moment  in  the  arroyo;  as  reckless  as  when 
he  walked  across  the  store  toward  a  gun-muzzle.  Only 
hers  were  this  time  the  set,  still  features.  His  were 
lighted  with  all  the  strength  of  him  and  all  the  faith 
of  him. 

"A  part!"  he  cried.  "Yes,  a  part — a  sovereign  and 
true  part  which  I  shall  ever  play !  I  was  going  that  day 
we  first  met,  going  before  the  legate  of  the  millions 
came  to  me.  Why  did  I  stay?  Because  I  could  not 
go  when  I  saw  that  you  wanted  to  turn  me  out  of  the 
garden!" 

His  quivering  words  were  spoken  to  a  profile  of 
bronze,  over  which  flickered  a  smile  as  she  answered 
with  a  prompting  and  disinterested  analysis. 
;.  "You  said  it  was  to  make  callouses  on  your  hands. 
But  that  must  have  been  persiflage.  The  truth  is  that 
you  imagined  a  challenger.  You  wanted  to  win  a  vic- 
tory!" she  answered. 

"It  was  for  you  that  I  calloused  my  hands!" 


206  OVER  THE  PASS 

"Time  will  make  them  soft!" 

She  was  half  teasing  now,  but  teasing  through  the 
visor,  not  over  the  wall. 

"And  if  I  sought  victory  I  saw  that  I  was  being 
beaten  while  I  made  a  profession  of  you,  not  of  gar- 
dening! Yes,  of  you!  I  could  confess  it  to  all  the 
world  and  its  ridicule!" 

"Jack,  you  are  dramatic!" 

If  she  would  only  once  look  at  him!  If  he  could 
only  speak  into  her  eyes !  If  her  breaths  did  not  come 
and  go  so  regularly! 

"Why  did  I  take  to  the  trail  after  Pedro  Nogales 
struck  at  me  with  his  knife?  Because  I  saw  the  look 
on  your  face  when  you  saw  that  I  had  broken  his  arm, 
I  had  not  meant  to  break  his  arm — yet  I  know  that  I 
might  have  done  worse  but  for  you!  I  did  not  mean 
to  kill  Leddy — yet  there  was  something  in  me  which 
might  have  killed  him  but  for  you!" 

"I  am  glad  to  have  prevented  murder!"  she  answered 
almost  harshly. 

A  shadow  of  horror,  as  if  in  recollection  of  the  scene 
in  the  arroyo  and  beside  the  hedge,  passed  over  her 
face. 

"Yes,  I  understand !  I  understand ! "  he  said.  "And 
you  must  hear  why  this  terrible  impulse  rose  in  me." 

"I  know." 

"You  know?    You  know?"  he  repeated. 

"About  the  millions,"  she  corrected  herself,  hastily. 
"Go  on,  Jack,  if  you  wish!"  Urgency  crept  into  her 
tone,  the  urgency  of  wishing  to  have  done  with  a  scene 
which  she  was  bearing  with  the  fortitude  of  tightened 
nerves. 

"It  was  the  millions  that  sent  me  out  here  with  a 


"LUCK,  JACK,  LUCK!"  207 

message,  when  I  did  not  much  care  about  anything, 
and  their  message  was:  'We  do  not  want  to  see  you 
again  if  you  are  to  be  forever  a  weakling.  Get  strong, 
for  our  power  is  to  the  strong!  Get  strong,  or  do  not 
come  back!'" 

"Yes?" 

For  the  first  time  since  he  bad  begun  his  story  she 
looked  fairly  at  him.  It  was  as  if  the  armor  had 
melted  with  sympathy  and  pity  and  she,  in  the  pride 
of  the  poverty  of  Little  Rivers,  was  armed  with  a 
Samaritan  kindliness.  For  a  second  only  he  saw  her 
thus,  before  she  looked  away  to  the  horizon  and  he 
saw  that  she  was  again  in  armor. 

"And  I  craved  strength!  It  was  my  one  way  to 
make  good.  I  rode  the  solitudes,  following  the  sea- 
sons, getting  strength.  I  rejoiced  in  the  tan  of  my 
arm  and  the  movement  of  my  own  muscles.  I  learned 
to  love  the  feel  of  a  rifle-stock  against  my  shoulder, 
the  touch  of  the  trigger  to  my  finger's  end.  I  would 
shoot  at  the  cactus  in  the  moonlight — oh,  that  is 
difficult,  shooting  by  moonlight! — and  I  gloried  in  my 
increasing  accuracy — I,  the  weakling  of  libraries  and 
galleries  and  sunny  verandas  of  tourist  resorts !  Afraid 
at  first  of  a  precipice's  edge,  I  came  to  enjoy  looking 
over  into  abysses  and  in  spending  a  whole  day  climb- 
ing down  into  their  depths,  while  Firio  waited  in  camp. 
And  at  times  I  would  cry  out:  'Millions,  I  am  strong! 
I  am  not  afraid  of  you!  I  am  not  afraid  of  anything!' 
In  the  days  when  I  knew  I  could  never  be  acceptable 
as  their  master  I  knew  I  was  in  no  danger  of  ever 
having  to  face  them.  When  I  had  grown  strong,  less 
than  ever  did  I  want  to  face  them.  I  know  not  why, 
but  I  saw  shadows;  I  looked  into  another  kind  of 


208  OVER  THE  PASS 

depths — mental  depths — which  held  a  message  that  I 
feared.  So  I  procrastinated,  staying  on  in  the  air 
which  had  given  me  red  blood.  But  that  was  cow- 
ardly, and  that  day  I  came  over  the  pass  I  was  mak- 
ing my  last  ride  in  the  kingdom  of  irresponsibility.  I 
was  going  home! 

"When  you  asked  me  not  to  face  Leddy  I  simply 
had  to  refuse.  I  had  just  as  soon  as  not  that  Leddy 
would  shoot  at  me,  because  I  wanted  to  see  if  he  would. 
Yes,  I  was  strong.  I  had  conquered.  And  if  Leddy 
hit  me,  why,  I  did  not  have  to  go  back  to  battle  with 
the  shadows — the  obsession  of  shadows  which  had 
grown  in  my  mind  as  my  strength  grew.  When  I  was 
smiling  in  Leddy's  muzzle,  as  they  say  I  did,  I  was  just 
smiling  exultantly  at  the  millions  that  had  called  me  a 
weakling,  and  saying,  like  some  boaster,  'Could  you  do 
this,  millions?'  I — I — well,  Mary,  I — I  have  told  you 
what  I  never  was  quite  able  to  tell  myself  before." 

"Thank  you,  Jack!"  she  answered,  and  all  the  par- 
ticles of  sunlight  that  bathed  her  seemed  to  reflect 
her  quiet  gladness  as  something  detached,  permeating, 
and  transcendent. 

"When  Leddy  challenged  me  I  wanted  to  fight," 
he  went  on.  "I  wanted  to  see  how  cool  I,  the  weak- 
ling whom  the  millions  scorned,  could  be  in  battle. 
After  Leddy's  shot  in  the  arroyo  I  found  that  strength 
had  discovered  something  else  in  me — something  that 
had  lain  dormant  in  boyhood  and  had  not  awakened 
to  any  consciousness  of  itself  in  the  five  years  on  the 
desert — something  of  which  all  my  boyhood  training 
made  me  no  less  afraid  than  of  the  shadows,  born  of 
the  blood,  born  of  the  very  strength  I  had  won.  It 
seemed  to  run  counter  to  books  and  gardens  and  peace 


"LUCK,  JACK,  LUCK!"  209 

itself — a  lawless,  devil-like  creature!  Yes,  I  gloried 
in  the  fact  that  I  could  kill  Leddy.  It  was  an  intoxi- 
cation to  hold  a  steady  bead  on  him.  And  you  saw 
and  felt  that  in  me — yes,  I  tell  you  everything  as  a 
man  must  when  he  comes  to  a  woman  offering  himself, 
his  all,  with  his  angels,  his  devils,  and  his  dreams!" 

He  paused  trembling,  as  before  a  judge.  She  turned 
quickly,  with  a  sudden,  winsome  vivacity,  the  glow 
of  a  great  satisfaction  in  her  eyes  and  smiling  a  com- 
radeship which  made  her  old  attitude  over  the  wall 
a  thing  of  dross  and  yet  far  more  intimate.  Her  hand 
went  out  to  meet  his. 

"Jack,  we  have  had  good  times  together,"  she  said. 
"We  were  never  mawkish;  we  were  just  good  citizens 
of  Little  Rivers,  weren't  we?  And,  Jack,  every  mortal 
of  us  is  partly  what  he  is  born  and  the  rest  is  what  he 
can  do  to  bend  inheritance  to  his  will.  But  we  can 
never  quite  transform  our  inheritance  and  if  we  stifle 
it,  some  day  it  will  break  loose.  The  first  thing  is  to 
face  what  seems  born  in  us,  and  you  have  made  a  good 
beginning." 

She  gave  his  hands  a  nervous,  earnest  clasp  and 
withdrew  hers  as  she  rose.  So  they  stood  facing  each 
other,  she  in  the  panoply  of  good  will,  he  with  his 
heart  on  his  sleeve.  The  swiftly  changing  pictures 
of  the  Eternal  Painter  in  his  evening  orgy  seemed  to 
fill  the  air  with  the  music  of  a  symphony  in  its  last 
measures,  and  her  very  breaths  and  smiles  to  be  keep- 
ing time  with  its  irresistible  movement  toward  the 
finale. 

"I  must  be  starting  back,  Jack,"  she  said. 

"And,  Mary,  I  must  learn  how  to  master  the  millions. 
Oh,  I  have  not  the  courage  of  the  little  dwarf  pine  in 


210  OVER  THE  PASS 

the  canyon!  Mary,  Mary,  I  calloused  my  hands  for 
you !  I  want  to  master  the  millions  for  you !  I  would 
give  you  the  freedom  of  Little  Rivers  and  all  the  cities 
of  the  world !" 

"No,  Jack!  This  is  my  side  of  the  pass.  I  shall 
be  very  happy  here." 

"Then  I  will  stay  in  Little  Rivers!  I  will  leave  the 
millions  to  the  shadows!  I  will  stay  on  ranch-making, 
fortune-making.  Mary,  I  love  you!  I  love  you!" 

There  was  no  staying  the  flame  of  his  feeling.  He 
seized  her  hands;  he  drew  her  to  him.  But  her  hands 
were  cold;  they  were  shivering. 

"Jack!  No,  no!  It  is  not  in  the  blood!"  she  cried 
in  the  face  of  some  mocking  phantom,  her  calmness 
gone  and  her  words  rocking  with  the  tumult  of  emotion. 

"In  the  blood,  Mary?  What  do  you  mean?  What 
do  you  know  that  I  don't  know?  Do  you  know  those 
shadows  that  I  cannot  understand  better  than  I?" 
he  pleaded;  and  he  was  thinking  of  the  Doge's  look  of 
pity  and  challenge  and  of  the  meeting  long  ago  in 
Florence  as  the  hazy  filaments  of  a  mystery. 

"No,  I  should  not  have  said  that.  What  do  I 
know?  Little — nothing  that  will  help!  I  know  what 
is  in  me,  as  I  know  what  is  in  you.  I  am  afraid  of 
myself — afraid  of  you!" 

"Mary,  I  will  fight  all  the  shadows!"  He  drew  her 
close  to  him  resistlessly  in  his  might. 

"Jack,  you  will  not  use  your  strength  against  me! 
Jack!" 

He  saw  her  eyes  in  a  mist  of  pain  and  reproach  as 
he  released  her.  And  now  she  threw  back  her  head; 
she  was  smiling  in  the  philosophy  of  garden  nonsense 
as  she  cried: 


"LUCK,  JACK,  LUCK1"  211 

"  Good-by,  Jack !  Luck  against  the  dinosaur !  Don't 
press  him  too  hard  when  he  is  turning  a  sharp  corner. 
Remember  he  has  a  long  reach  with  his  old  paleozoic 
tail.  Luck!"  with  a  laugh  through  her  tears;  a  laugh 
with  tremulous  cheer  in  it  and  yet  with  the  ring  of 
a  key  in  the  lock  of  a  gate. 

Unsteadily  he  bent  over  and-  taking  her  hands  in 
his  pressed  his  lips  to  them. 

"Yes,  luck!"  he  repeated,  and  half  staggering  turned 
toward  the  defile. 

"Luck!"  she  called  after  him  when  he  was  out  of 
sight.  "Luck!"  she  called  to  the  silence  of  the  pass. 

Three  days  with  the  trail  and  the  Eternal  Painter 
mocking  him,  when  the  singing  of  Spanish  verses  that 
go  click  with  the  beat  of  horse-hoofs  in  the  sand  sounded 
hollow  as  the  refrain  of  vain  memories,  and  from  the 
steps  of  a  Pullman  he  had  a  final  glimpse  of  Firio's 
mournful  face,  with  its  dark  eyes  shining  in  the  light 
of  the  station  lamp.  Firio  had  in  his  hand  a  paper, 
a  sort  of  will  and  testament  given  him  at  the  last 
minute,  which  made  him  master  in  fee  simple  of  the 
ranch  where  he  had  been  servant,  with  the  provision 
that  the  Doge  of  Little  Rivers  might  store  his  overflow 
of  books  there  forever. 


n 

HE  FINDS  HIMSELF 


XXIII 
LABELLED  AND  SHIPPED 

Behold  Jack  clad  in  the  habiliments  of  conventional 
civilization  taken  from  the  stock  of  ready-made  suit- 
ings in  an  El  Paso  store!  They  were  of  the  Mos- 
cowitz  and  Guggenheim  type,  the  very  latest  and 
nattiest,  as  advertised  in  popular  prints.  The  dealer 
said  that  no  gentleman  could  be  well  dressed  without 
them.  He  wanted  to  complete  the  transformation 
with  a  cream-colored  Fedora  or  a  brown  derby. 

"I'll  wait  on  the  thirty-third  degree  a  little  longer," 
said  Jack,  fondling  the  flat-brimmed  cowpuncher 
model  of  affectionate  predilection.  Swinging  on  a 
hook  on  the  sleeper  with  the  sway  of  the  train,  its 
company  was  soothing  to  him  all  the  way  across  the 
continent. 

The  time  was  March,  that  season  of  the  northern 
year  when  winter  growing  stale  has  a  gritty,  sticky 
taste  and  the  relief  of  spring  seems  yet  far  away.  After 
the  desert  air  the  steam  heat  was  stifling  and  nauseat- 
ing. Jack's  head  was  a  barrel  about  to  burst  its  hoops; 
his  skin  drying  like  a  mummy's;  his  muscles  in  a  starchy 
misery  from  lack  of  exercise.  He  felt  boxed  up,  an 
express  package  labelled  and  shipped.  When  he 
crawled  into  his  berth  at  night  it  was  with  a  sense  of 
giving  himself  up  to  asphyxiation  at  the  whim  of 
strange  gods. 

If  you  have  ever  come  back  to  town  after  six  months 
215 


216  OVER  THE  PASS 

in  the  woods,  six  months  far  from  the  hysteria  of  tit- 
tering electric  bells,  the  brassy  honk-honk  of  automo- 
biles, the  clang  of  surface  cars  and  the  screech  of  their 
wheels  on  the  rails,  multiply  your  period  of  absence 
by  ten,  add  a  certain  amount  of  desert  temperament, 
and  you  will  vaguely  understand  how  the  red  cor- 
puscles were  raising  rebellion  in  Jack's  artery  walls 
on  the  morning  of  his  journey's  end.  From  the  ferry- 
boat on  the  dull-green  bosom  of  the  river  he  first  re- 
newed his  memory  of  the  spectral  and  forbidding 
abysses  and  pinnacles  of  New  York.  Here  time  is 
everything;  here  man  has  done  his  mightiest  in  con- 
triving masses  to  imitate  the  architectural  chaos  of 
genesis.  A  mantle  of  chill,  smoky  mist  formed  the 
dome  of  heaven,  in  which  a  pale,  suffused,  yellowish 
spot  alone  bespoke  the  existence  of  a  sun  in  the  uni- 
verse. 

In  keeping  with  his  promise  to  Dr.  Bennington  he 
had  wired  to  his  father,  naming  his  train;  and  in  a  few 
minutes  Wingfield,  Sr.  and  Wingfield,  Jr.,  would  meet 
for  the  first  time  in  five  years.  Jack  was  conscious 
of  a  faster  beating  of  his  heart  and  a  feeling  of  awe- 
some expectancy  as  the  crowd  debouched  from  the 
ferryboat.  At  the  exit  to  the  street  a  big  limousine 
was  waiting.  The  gilt  initials  on  the  door  left  no 
doubt  for  whom  it  had  been  sent.  But  there  was  no 
one  to  meet  him,  no  one  after  his  long  absence  except  a 
chauffeur  and  a  footman,  who  glanced  at  Jack  sharply. 
After  the  exchange  of  a  corroborative  nod  between 
them  the  footman  advanced. 

"If  you  please,  Mr.  Wingfield,"  he  said,  taking 
Jack's  suit  case. 

"What  would  Jim  Galway  think  of  me  now!" thought 


LABELLED  AND  SHIPFED  217 

Jack.  He  put  his  head  inside  the  car  cautiously. 
"Another  box!"  he  thought,  this  time  aloud. 

"You  have  the  check  for  it,  sir?"  asked  the  footman, 
thinking  that  Jack  was  using  the  English  of  the  mother 
island  for  trunk. 

"No.    That's  all  my  baggage." 

In  the  tapering,  cut-glass  vase  between  the  two 
front  window-panels  of  the  "box"  was  a  rose — a  symbol 
of  the  luxury  of  the  twenty  millions,  evidently  put 
there  regularly  every  morning  by  direction  of  their 
master.  Its  freshness  and  color  appealed  to  Jack. 
He  took  it  out  and  pressed  it  to  his  nostrils. 

"Just  needs  the  morning  sun  and  the  dew  to  be  per- 
fect," he  said  to  the  amazed  attendants;  "and  I  will 
walk  if  you  will  take  the  suit  case  to  the  house." 

He  kept  the  rose,  which  he  twirled  in  his  fingers  as 
he  sauntered  across  town,  now  pausing  at  curb  corners 
to  glance  back  in  thoughtful  survey,  now  looking  aloft 
at  the  peaks  of  Broadway  which  lay  beyond  the  foot- 
hills of  the  river-front  avenues. 

"All  to  me  what  the  desert  is  to  other  folks!"  he 
mused;  "desert,  without  any  cacti  or  mesquite!  All 
the  trails  cross  one  another  in  a  maze.  A  boxed-up 
desert — boxes  and  boxes  piled  on  top  of  one  another! 
Everybody  in  harness  and  attached  by  an  invisible, 
unbreakable,  inelastic  leash  to  a  box,  whither  he  bears 
his  honey  or  goes  to  nurse  his  broken  wings! — so  it 
seems  to  me  and  very  headachy!" 

At  Madison  Square  he  was  at  the  base  of  the  range 
itself;  and  halting  on  the  corner  of  Twenty-third  Street 
and  the  Avenue  he  was  a  statue  as  aloof  as  the  statue 
of  Farragut  from  his  surroundings.  Salt  sea  spray 
ever  whispers  in  the  atmosphere  around  the  old  sailor. 


218  OVER  THE  PASS 

How  St.  Gaudens  created  it  and  keeps  it  there  in  the 
heart  of  New  York  is  his  secret.  Possibly  the  sculptor 
put  some  of  his  soul  into  it  as  young  Michael  Angelo 
did  into  his  young  David. 

It  is  a  great  thing  to  put  some  of  your  soul  into  a 
thing,  whether  it  is  driving  a  nail  or  moulding  a  piece 
of  clay  into  life.  There  are  men  who  pause  before 
the  old  Admiral  and  see  the  cutwater  of  men-of-war's 
bows  and  hear  the  singing  of  the  signal  halyards  as 
they  rise  with  the  command  to  close  in.  Perhaps 
the  Eternal  Painter  had  put  a  little  of  his  soul  into 
the  heart  of  Jack;  for  some  busy  marchers  of  the  Ave- 
nue trail  as  they  glanced  at  him  saw  the  free  desert 
and  heard  hoof -beats  in  the  sand.  Others  seeing  a 
tanned  Westerner  kissing  his  hand  to  Diana  of  Madison 
Square  Garden  probably  thought  him  mad.  Next, 
performing  another  sentimental  errand  for  the  Doge 
of  Little  Rivers,  his  gaze  rose  along  the  column  of  the 
Metropolitan  tower.  Its  heights  were  half  shrouded 
in  mist,  through  which  glowed  the  gold  of  the  lantern. 

"Oh,  bully!  bully!"  he  thought.  "The  only  sun 
in  sight  a  manufactured  one,  shining  on  top  of  a  manu- 
factured mountain!  It  is  a  big  business  building  a 
mountain;  only,  when  God  Almighty  scattered  so 
many  ready-made  ones  about,  why  take  the  trouble?" 
he  concluded.  "Or  so  it  seems  to  me,"  he  added, 
sadly,  in  due  appreciation  of  the  utterly  reactionary 
mood  of  a  man  who  has  been  boxed  up  for  a  week. 

Now  he  turned  toward  a  quarter  which  he  had,  thus 
far,  kept  out  of  the  compass  of  observation.  He 
looked  up  the  jagged  range  of  Broadway  where,  over 
a  terra-cotta  pile,  floated  a  crimson  flag  with  "John 
Wingfield"  in  big,  white  letters. 


LABELLED  AND  SHIPPED  219 

"  My  mountain !  My  box !  My  millions ! "  he  breathed 
half  audibly. 

How  the  people  whom  he  passed,  their  faces  speak- 
ing city  keenness  of  ambition,  must  envy  his  position! 
How  little  reason  they  had  to  envy  him,  he  thought, 
as  he  walked  around  the  great  building  and  saw  his 
name  glaring  at  him  in  gilt  letters  over  the  plate-glass 
windows  and  on  all  the  delivery  wagons,  open-mouthed 
for  the  packages  being  wheeled  out  under  the  long 
glass  awning. 

"A  whole  block  now!  Yes,  the  doctor  was  right. 
It  must  be  thirty  instead  of  twenty  millions!"  he  con- 
cluded, as  his  vision  swept  the  straight-line,  window- 
checkered  mass  of  the  twelve  stories.  "And  I  do 
wish  we  had  a  tower!  If  one  could  go  up  on  top  of  a 
tower  and  look  out  over  the  range  now  and  then  and 
breathe  deep,  it  would  help." 

When  he  entered  the  main  door  he  paused  in  a  maze, 
gazing  at  the  acreage  of  counters  manned  by  clerks 
and  the  aisles  swarming  with  shoppers  under  the 
glare  of  the  big,  electric  globes,  and  listening  to  the 
babble  of  shrill  talk,  the  calls  of  the  elevator  boys, 
the  coughing  of  the  pneumatic  tubes  and  the  clang 
of  the  elevator  doors.  It  was  all  like  some  devilishly 
complicated  dream  from  which  he  would  never  awake. 
He  must  have  a  little  time  in  order  to  orient  himself 
before  he  could  think  rationally.  The  roar  of  the 
train  still  obsessed  him;  the  air  in  the  store  seemed 
more  stifling  than  that  of  the  sleeper. 

So  he  decided  that,  rather  than  be  shot  up  into 
The  Presence  by  the  elevator,  he  would  gradually 
scale  the  heights.  Ascending  stairway  after  stairway, 
he  ranged  back  and  forth  over  the  floors,  a  stranger 


220  OVER  THE  PASS 

in  his  own  wonderland.  When  he  reached  the  eleventh 
floor,  with  only  one  more  to  the  offices,  the  whole 
atmosphere  seemed  suddenly  to  turn  rare  with  ex- 
pectancy; a  rustle  to  run  through  all  the  goods  on 
the  counters;  the  very  Paris  gowns  among  which  he 
was  standing  to  be  called  to  martial  attention. 

"The  boss!"  he  heard  one  of  the  model  girls  say. 

Turning  to  follow  her  nod  toward  the  stairway,  Jack 
saw,  two-thirds  of  the  way  up  the  broad  flight,  a  man 
past  middle  age,  in  dark  gray  suit  and  neutral  tie, 
rubbing  his  palms  together  as  he  surveyed  a  stratum 
of  his  principality.  The  sight  of  him  to  Jack  was 
like  the  touch  of  a  myriad  electric  needles  that  pricked 
sharply,  without  exhilaration. 

"The  boss  is  likely  to  run  up  that  way  any  time  of 
the  day,"  said  the  model  girl  to  a  customer;  "and 
what  he  don't  see  don't  count!" 

"Not  much  older;  not  much  changed!"  thought 
Jack;  and  his  realization  of  the  disinterestedness  of 
his  observation  tipped  the  needles  with  acid. 

In  the  sharpness  of  the  master's  button-counting 
survey  there  was  swift  finality;  and  his  impressions 
completed,  analyzed,  docketed  for  reference,  he  ran 
on  up  the  flight  with  light  step,  still  rubbing  the  palms 
of  his  hands  in  the  unctuously  well-contained  and 
appreciative  sense  of  his  power.  To  Jack  he  was  a 
fascinating,  grand,  distant  figure,  this  of  his  own 
father,  yet  mortally  near. 

If  the  model  girl  had  had  the  same  keenness  of  ob- 
servation for  what  is  borne  in  the  face  as  for  what  is 
worn  on  the  back,  she  could  not  have  failed  to  note 
the  strong  family  resemblance  between  the  young 
man  standing  near  her  and  the  man  who  had  paused 


LABELLED  AND  SHIPPED  221 

on  the  stairway.  This  glimpse  of  his  father's  mas- 
tery of  every  detail  of  that  organization  which  he  had 
built,  this  glimpse  of  cool,  self-centered  authority,  only 
reminded  Jack  of  his  own  ignorance  and  flightiness  in 
view  of  all  that  would  be  expected  of  him.  He  knew 
less  than  one  of  the  cash  girls  about  how  to  run  the 
store.  A  duel  with  Leddy  was  a  simple  matter  beside 
this  battle  he  had  to  wage. 

He  mounted  the  last  flight  of  stairs  into  an  area  of 
glass-paneled  doors,  behind  which  the  creative  busi- 
ness of  the  great  concern  was  conducted.  Out  of  one 
marked  "Private,"  closing  it  softly  and  stepping  softly, 
came  a  round-shouldered,  stooping  man  of  middle  age, 
with  the  apprehensive  and  palliating  manner  of  a  long- 
service  private  secretary  who  has  many  things  to 
remember  and  many  persons  to  appease  with  explana- 
tions. It  was  evident  that  Peter  Mortimer  had  just 
come  from  The  Presence.  At  sight  of  Jack  he  drew 
back  in  a  surprise  that  broke  into  a  beaming  delight 
which  played  over  his  tired  and  wrinkled  features  in 
ecstasy. 

"Jack!    Jack  I    You  did  it!    You  did  it!"  he  cried. 

"Peter!"  Jack  seized  the  secretary's  hands  and 
swung  them  back  and  forth. 

"You've  got  a  grip  of  iron!  And  tanned — my,  how 
you're  tanned!  You  did  it,  Jack,  you  did  it!  It 
hardly  seems  credible,  when  I  think  of  the  last  time 
I  saw  you." 

It  was  then  that  the  secretary  had  seen  a  Jack  with 
his  'eyes  moist;  a  Jack  pasty-faced,  hollow-cheeked; 
and,  in  what  was  a  revolutionary  outburst  for  a  unit 
in  the  offices,  Peter  Mortimer  had  put  his  arm  around 
the  boy  in  a  cry  for  the  success  of  the  Odyssey  for 


222  OVER  THE  PASS 

health  which  the  heir  was  about  to  begin.  And  Morti- 
mer's words  were  sweet,  while  the  words  of  the  fare- 
well from  the  other  side  of  the  glass-paneled  door 
marked  "Private"  were  acrid  with  the  disappointed 
hopes  of  the  speaker. 

"You  have  always  been  a  weakling,  Jack,  and  I 
have  had  little  to  say  about  your  rearing.  Go  out  to 
the  desert  and  stay — stay  till  you  are  strong!"  de- 
clared the  voice  of  strength,  as  if  glad  to  be  freed  of 
the  sight  of  weakness  in  its  own  image. 

"Father  did  not  come  to  meet  me?"  Jack  observed 
questioningly  now  to  Mortimer. 

"He  was  very  busy — he  did  not  feel  certain  about 
the  nature  of  your  telegram — he — "  and  Mortimer's 
impulses  withdrew  into  the  shell  of  the  professional 
private  secretary. 

"I  wired  that  he  should  see  for  himself  if  I  were  well. 
So  he  shall!"  said  Jack,  turning  toward  the  door. 

"Yes — that  will  be  all  right — yes,  there  is  no  one 
with  him!" 

Mortimer,  in  the  very  instinct  of  long  practice,  was 
about  to  go  in  to  announce  the  visitor,  but  paused. 
As  Jack  entered,  whatever  else  may  have  been  in  his 
eyes,  there  was  no  moisture. 


XXIV 

IN  THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  MILLIONS 

John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  sat  at  a  mahogany  table  without 
a  single  drawer,  in  the  centre  of  a  large  room  with 
bare,  green-tinted  walls.  His  oculist  had  said  that 
green  was  the  best  color  for  the  eyes.  Beside  the  green 
blotting-pad  in  front  of  him  was  a  pile  of  papers. 
These  would  either  be  disposed  of  in  the  course  of  the 
day  or,  if  any  waited  on  the  morrow's  decision,  would 
be  taken  away  by  Peter  Mortimer  overnight.  When 
he  rose  to  go  home  it  was  always  with  a  clear  desk;" 
a  habit,  a  belief  of  his  singularly  well-ordered  mind 
in  the  mastery  of  the  teeming  detail  that  throbbed 
under  the  thin  soles  of  his  soft  kid  shoes.  On  the 
other  side  of  the  pad  was  the  telephone,  and  beyond 
it  the  supreme  implements  of  his  will,  a  row  of  pearl- 
topped  push-buttons. 

The  story  of  John  Wingfield,  Sr.'s  rise  and  career,  as 
the  lieutenants  of  the  offices  and  the  battalions  of  the 
shopping  floors  knew  it,  was  not  the  story,  perhaps, 
as  Dr.  Bennington  or  Peter  Mortimer  knew  it;  but, 
then,  doctors  and  private  secretaries  are  supposed  to 
hold  their  secrets.  There  was  little  out  of  the  com- 
monplace in  the  world's  accepted  version.  You  may 
hear  its  like  from  the  moneyed  host  at  his  dinner  table 
in  New  York  or  as  he  shows  you  over  the  acres  of  his 
country  estate,  enthusing  with  a  personal  narrative 
of  conquest  which  is  to  him  unique.  John  Wingfield, 
223 


224  OVER  THE  PASS 

ST.,  makes  history  for  us  in  the  type  of  woman  whom 
he  married  and  the  type  of  son  she  bore  him. 

He  was  the  son  of  a  New  England  country  clergy- 
man, to  whom  working  his  way  through  college  in 
order  to  practise  a  profession  made  no  appeal.  Birth 
and  boyhood  in  poverty  had  taught  him,  from  want 
of  money,  the  power  of  money.  He  sought  the  centre 
of  the  market-place.  At  sixteen  he  was  a  clerk,  marked 
by  his  industry  not  less  than  by  his  engaging  manners, 
on  six  dollars  a  week  in  the  little  store  that  was  the 
site  of  his  present  triumph.  Of  course  he  became  a 
partner  and  then  owner.  It  was  his  frequent  remark, 
when  he  turned  reminiscent,  that  if  he  could  only  get 
as  good  clerks  as  he  was  in  his  day  he  would  soon 
have  a  monopoly  of  supplying  New  York  and  its 
environs  with  all  it  ate  and  wore  and  needed  to  furnish 
its  houses;  which  raises  the  point  that  possibly  such 
an  equality  of  high  standards  in  efficiency  might  make 
all  clerks  employers. 

The  steady  flame  of  his  egoism  was  fanned  with  his 
successes.  Without  real  intimates  or  friends,  he  had 
an  effective  magnetism  in  making  others  do  his  bid- 
ding. It  had  hardly  occurred  to  him  that  his  discovery 
of  the  principle  of  never  doing  anything  yourself  that 
you  can  win  others  to  do  for  you  and  never  failing, 
when  you  have  a  minute  to  spare,  to  do  a  thing  your- 
self when  you  can  do  it  better  than  any  assistant,  was 
already  a  practice  with  leaders  in  trade  and  industry 
before  the  Pharaohs. 

Life  had  been  to  him  a  ladder  which  he  ascended 
without  any  glances  to  right  or  left  or  at  the  rung 
that  he  had  left  behind.  The  adaptable  processes 
of  his  mind  kept  pace  with  his  rise.  He  made  himself 


IN  THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  MILLIONS     225 

at  home  in  each  higher  stratum  of  atmosphere.  His 
marriage,  delayed  until  he  was  forty  and  already  a  man 
of  power,  was  still  another  upward  step.  Alice  Jamison 
brought  him  capital  and  position.  The  world  was 
puzzled  why  she  should  have  accepted  him;  but  this 
stroke  of  success  he  now  considered  as  the  vital  error 
of  a  career  which,  otherwise,-  had  been  flawlessly 
planned.  Yet  he  could  flatter  his  egoism  with  the 
thought  that  it  was  less  a  fault  of  judgment  than  of 
the  uncertainty  of  feminine  temperament,  which  could 
not  be  measured  by  logic. 

New  York  saw  little  of  Mrs.  Wingfield  after  Jack's 
birth.  Her  friends  knew  her  as  a  creature  all  life  and 
light  before  her  marriage;  they  realized  that  the  life 
and  light  had  passed  out  of  her  soon  after  the  boy  came; 
and  thenceforth  they  saw  and  heard  little  of  her.  She 
had  given  herself  up  to  the  insistent  possessorship  and 
company  of  her  son.  Those  who  met  her  when  travel- 
ling reported  how  frail  she  was  and  how  constrained. 

Jack  was  fourteen  when  his  mother  died.  He  was 
brought  home  and  sent  to  school  in  America;  and  two 
years  later  Dr.  Bennington  announced  that  the  slender 
youngster,  who  had  been  so  completely  estranged  from 
the  affairs  of  the  store,  must  matriculate  in  the  ozone 
of  high  altitudes  instead  of  in  college,  if  his  life  were 
to  be  saved.  Whether  Jack  were  riding  over  the  me-sas 
of  Arizona  or  playing  in  a  villa  garden  in  Florence,  John 
Wingfield,  Sr.'s  outlook  on  life  was  the  same.  It  was 
the  obsession  of  self  in  his  affairs.  After  the  eclipse 
of  his  egoism  the  deluge.  The  very  thought  that  any- 
one should  succeed  him  was  a  shock  reminding  him  of 
growing  age  in  the  midst  of  the  full  possession  of  his 
faculties,  while  he  felt  no  diminution  of  his  ambition. 


226  OVER  THE  PASS 

"I  am  getting  better,"  came  the  occasional  message 
from  that  stranger  son.  And  the  father  kept  on  play- 
ing the  tune  of  accruing  millions  on  the  push-buttons. 
His  decision  to  send  Dr.  Bennington  to  Arizona  came 
suddenly,  just  after  he  had  turned  sixty-three.  He 
had  had  an  attack  of  grip  at  the  same  time  that  his 
attention  had  been  acutely  called  to  the  demoraliza- 
tion of  another  great  business  institution  whose  head 
had  died  without  issue,  leaving  his  affairs  in  the  hands 
of  trustees. 

Two  days  of  confinement  in  his  room  with  a  high 
pulse  had  brought  reflection  and  the  development  of 
atavism.  What  if  the  institution  built  as  a  monument 
to  himself  should  also  pass!  What  if  the  name  of 
Wingfield,  his  name,  should  no  longer  float  twelve 
stories  high  over  his  building!  He  foresaw  the  promise 
of  companionship  of  a  restless  and  ghastly  apparition 
in  the  future. 

But  he  recovered  rapidly  from  his  illness  and  his 
mental  processes  were  as  keen  and  prehensile  as  ever. 
Checking  off  one  against  the  other,  with  customary 
shrewdness,  he  had  a  number  of  doctors  go  over  him, 
and  all  agreed  that  he  was  good  for  twenty  years  yet. 
Twenty  years!  Why,  Jack  would  be  middle-aged  by 
that  time!  Twenty  years  was  the  difference  between 
forty-three  and  sixty-three.  Since  he  was  forty-three 
he  had  quintupled  his  fortune.  He  would  at  least 
double  it  again.  He  was  not  old;  he  was  young;  he 
was  an  exceptional  man  who  had  taken  good  care  of 
himself.  The  threescore  and  ten  heresy  could  not 
apply  to  him. 

Bennington's  telegram  irritated  him  with  its  lack 
of  precision.  Fifteen  hundred  dollars  and  expenses 


IN  THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  MILLIONS     227 

to  send  an  expert  to  Arizona  and  in  return  this  un- 
businesslike report:  "You  will  see  Jack  for  yourself. 
He  is  coming." 

In  the  full  enjoyment  of  health,  observing  every 
Slice  rule  for  longevity,  his  slumber  sweet,  his  appetite 
^ood,  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  had  less  interest  in  John 
Wingfield,  Jr.,  than  he  had  when  his  bones  were  ach- 
ing with  the  grip.  Jack's  telegram  from  Chicago  an- 
nouncing the  train  by  which  he  would  arrive  aroused 
an  old  resentment,  which  dated  far  back  to  Jack's 
childhood  and  to  a  frail  woman  who  had  been  proof 
against  her  husband's  will. 

Did  this  home-coming  mean  a  son  who  could  learn 
the  business;  a  strong,  shrewd,  cool-headed  son?  A 
son  who  could  be  such  an  adjutant  as  only  one  who  is 
of  your  own  flesh  and  blood  can  be  in  the  full  pursuit 
of  the  same  family  interest  as  yourself?  If  Jack  were 
well,  would  not  Bennington  have  said  so?  Would  he 
not  have  emphasized  it?  This  was  human  nature  as 
John  Wingfield, Sr., knew  it;  human  nature  which  never 
missed  a  chance  to  ingratiate  itself  by  announcing  suc- 
cess in  the  service  of  a  man  of  power. 

The  spirit  of  his  farewell  message  to  Jack,  which 
said  that  strength  might  return  but  bade  weakness 
to  remain  away,  and  the  injured  pride  of  seeing  a 
presentment  of  wounded  egoism  in  the  features  of  a 
sickly  boy,  which  had  kept  him  from  going  to  Arizona, 
were  again  dominant.  Yet  that  morning  he  had  a 
pressing  sense  of  distraction.  Even  Mortimer  noticed 
it  as  something  unusual  and  amazing.  He  kept  re- 
verting to  Jack's  history  between  flashes  of  appre- 
hension and  he  was  angry  with  himself  over  his  in- 
ability to  concentrate  his  mind.  Concentration  was 


228  OVER  THE  PASS 

his  god.  He  could  turn  from  lace-buyer  to  floor- walker 
with  the  quickness  of  the  swing  of  an  electric  switch. 
Concentrate  and  he  was  oblivious  to  everything  but 
the  subject  in  hand.  He  was  in  one  of  the  moments  of 
apprehension,  half  staring  at  the  buttons  on  the  desk 
rather  than  at  the  papers,  when  he  heard  the  door 
open  without  warning  and  looked  up  to  see  a  lean, 
sturdy  height  filling  the  doorway  and  the  light  from 
the  window  full  on  a  bronzed  and  serene  face. 

More  than  ever  was  Jack  like  David  come  over  the 
hills  in  his  incarnation  of  sleeping  energy.  Instead  of 
a  sling  he  carried  the  rose.  Into  the  abode  of  the 
nicely  governed  rules  of  longevity  came  the  atmos- 
phere of  some  invasive  spirit  that  would  make  the 
stake  of  life  the  foam  on  the  crest  of  a  charge  in  a 
splendid  moment;  the  spirit  of  Sefior  Don't  Care  paus- 
ing inquiringly,  almost  apologetically,  as  some  soldier 
in  dusty  khaki  might  if  he  had  marched  into  a  study 
unawares. 

Jack  was  waiting,  waiting  and  smiling,  for  his  father 
to  speak.  In  a  swift  survey,  his  features  transfixed 
at  first  with  astonishment,  then  glowing  with  pride, 
the  father  half  rose  from  his  chair,  as  if  in  an  impulse 
to  embrace  the  prodigal.  But  he  paused.  He  felt 
that  something  under  his  control  was  getting  out  of 
his  control.  He  felt  that  he  had  been  tricked.  The 
boy  must  have  been  well  for  a  long  time.  Yes!  But 
he  was  well !  That  was  the  vital  point.  He  was  well, 
and  magnificent  in  his  vigor. 

The  father  made  another  movement;  and  still  Jack 
was  waiting,  inquiring  yet  not  advancing.  And  John 
Wingfield,  Sr.,  wished  that  he  had  gone  to  the  station; 
he  wished  that  he  had  paid  a  visit  to  Arizona.  This 


IN  THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  MILLIONS     229 

thought  working  in  his  mind  supplied  Jack's  attitude 
with  an  aspect  which  made  the  father  hesitate  and 
then  drop  back  into  his  chair,  confused  and  uncertain 
for  the  first  time  in  his  own  office. 

"Well,  Jack,  you — you  surely  do  look  cured!"  he 
said  awkwardly.  "You  see,  I — I  was  a  little  surprised 
to  see  you  at  the  office.  I  sent  the  limousine  for  you, 
thinking  you  would  want  to  go  straight  to  the  house 
and  wash  off  the  dust  of  travel.  Didn't  you  con- 
nect?" 

"Yes,  thank  you,  father — and  when  you  didn't 
meet  me " 

"I — I  was  very  busy.  I  meant  to,  but  something 
interrupted — I — "  The  father  stopped,  confounded 
by  his  own  hesitation. 

"Of  course,"  said  Jack.  He  spoke  deferentially, 
understandingly.  "I  know  how  busy  you  always  are." 

Yet  the  tone  was  such  to  John  Wingfield,  Sr.'s  ears 
that  he  eyed  Jack  cautiously,  sharply,  in  the  ex- 
pectancy that  almost  any  kind  of  undisciplined  force 
might  break  loose  from  this  muscular  giant  whom  he 
was  trying  to  reconcile  with  the  Jack  whom  he  had  last 
seen. 

"I  thought  I'd  stretch  my  legs,  so  I  came  over  to 
the  store  to  see  how  it  had  grown,"  said  Jack.  "I 
don't  interrupt — for  a  moment?" 

He  sat  down  on  the  chair  opposite  his  father's  and 
laid  his  faded  cowpuncher  hat  and  the  rose  on  the 
desk.  They  looked  odd  in  the  company  of  the  push- 
buttons and  the  pile  of  papers  in  that  neutral-toned 
room  which  was  chilling  in  its  monotony  of  color. 
And  though  Jack  was  almost  boyishly  penitent,  in 
the  manner  of  one  who  comes  before  parental  authority 


230  OVER  THE  PASS 

after  he  has  been  in  mischief,  still  John  Wingfield,  Sr., 
could  not  escape  the  dead  weight  of  an  impression 
that  he  was  speaking  to  a  stranger  and  not  to  his  own 
flesh  and  blood.  He  wished  now  that  he  had  shown 
affection  on  Jack's  entrance.  He  had  a  desire  to  grip 
the  brown  hand  that  was  on  the  edge  of  the  desk 
fingering  the  rose  stem;  but  the  lateness  of  the  demon- 
stration, its  futility  in  making  up  for  his  previous 
neglect,  and  some  subtle  influence  radiating  from  Jack's 
person,  restrained  him.  It  was  apparent  that  Jack 
might  sit  on  in  silence  indefinitely;  in  a  desert  silence. 

"Well,  Jack,  I  hear  you  had  a  ranch,"  said  the 
father,  with  a  faint  effort  at  jocularity. 

"Yes.  and  a  great  crop  of  alfalfa,"  answered  Jack, 
happily. 

"And  it  seems  that  all  the  time  you  were  away  you 
have  never  used  your  allowance,  so  it  has  just  been 
piling  up  for  you." 

"I  didn't  need  it.  I  had  quite  sufficient  from  the 
income  of  my  mother's  estate." 

"Yes — your  mother — I  had  forgotten!" 

"Naturally,  I  preferred  to  use  that,  when  I  was  of 
so  little  service  to  you  unless  I  got  strong,  as  you  said," 
Jack  said,  very  quietly. 

Now  came  another  silence,  the  silence  of  luminous, 
unsounded  depths  concealing  that  in  the  mind  which 
has  never  been  spoken  or  even  taken  form.  Jack's 
garden  of  words  had  dried  up,  as  his  ranch  would  dry 
up  for  want  of  water.  He  rose  to  go,  groping  for 
something  that  should  express  proper  contrition  for 
wasted  years,  but  it  refused  to  come.  He  picked  up 
the  rose  and  the  hat,  while  the  father  regarded  him 
with  stony  wonder  which  said:  "Are  you  mine,  or 


IN  THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  MILLIONS     231 

are  you  not?  What  is  the  nature  of  this  new  strength? 
On  what  will  it  turn?" 

For  Jack's  features  had  set  with  a  strange  firmness 
and  his  eyes,  looking  into  his  father's,  had  a  steady 
light.  It  seemed  as  if  he  might  stalk  out  of  the  office 
forever,  and  nothing  could  stop  him.  But  suddenly 
he  flashed  his  smile;  he  had  Ipoked  about  searching 
for  a  talisman  and  found  it  in  the  rose,  which  set  his 
garden  of  words  abloom  again. 

"This  room  is  so  bare  it  must  be  lonely  for  you," 
he  said.  "Wouldn't  it  be  a  good  idea  to  cheer  it  up  a 
bit?  To  have  this  rose  in  a  vase  on  your  table  where 
you  could  see  it,  instead  of  riding  about  in  an  empty 
automobile  box?" 

"Why,  there  is  a  whole  cold  storage  booth  full  of 
them  down  on  the  first  floor!"  said  the  father. 

"Yes,  I  saw  them  in  their  icy  prison  under  the  elec- 
tric light  bulbs.  The  beads  of  water  on  them  were 
like  tears  of  longing  to  get  out  for  the  joy  of  their 
swan  song  under  a  woman's  smiles  or  beside  a  sick 
bed,"  said  Jack,  in  the  glow  of  real  enthusiasm. 

"Good  line  for  the  ad  writer!"  his  father  exclaimed, 
instinctively.  "You  always  did  have  fanciful  ideas, 
Jack." 

"Yes,  I  suppose  I  have!"  he  said,  with  some  surprise 
and  very  thoughtfully.  "I  suppose  that  I  was  born 
with  them  and  never  weeded  them  out." 

"No  doubt!"  and  the  father  frowned. 

Surveying  the  broad  shoulders  before  him,  he  was 
thinking  how  nothing  but  aimlessness  and  fantasies 
and  everything  out  of  harmony  with  the  career  to  come 
had  been  encouraged  in  the  son.  But  he  saw  soberness 
coming  into  Jack's  eyes  and  with  it  the  pressure  of  a 


232  OVER  THE  PASS 

certain  resoluteness  of  purpose.  And  now  Jack  spoke 
again,  a  trifle  sadly,  as  if  guessing  his  father's  thoughts. 

"It  will  be  a  case  of  weeding  for  me  in  the  future, 
won't  it?"  he  asked  wanly,  as  he  rose.  "I  am  full  of 
foolish  ideas  that  are  just  bound  to  run  away  with  me." 

"Jack!  Jack!"  John  Wingfield,  ST.,  put  his  hands 
out  to  the  shoulders  of  his  son  and  gripped  them 
strongly,  and  for  a  second  let  his  own  weight  half  rest 
on  that  sturdy  column  which  he  sensed  under  the  grip. 
His  pale  face,  the  paleness  of  the  type  that  never 
tans,  flushed.  "Jack,  come!"  he  said. 

He  permitted  himself  something  like  real  dramatic 
feeling  as  he  signalled  his  son  to  follow  him  out  of  the 
office  and  led  the  way  to  a  corner  of  one  of  the  bal- 
conies where,  under  the  light  from  the  glass  roof  of 
the  great  central  court,  he  could  see  down  the  tiers 
of  floors  to  the  jewelry  counter  which  sparkled  at  the 
bottom  of  the  well. 

"Look!  look!"  he  exclaimed,  rubbing  his  palms 
together  with  a  peculiar  crisp  sound.  "All  selling 
my  goods !  All  built  from  the  little  store  where  I  began 
as  a  clerk!" 

"It's — it's  immense!"  gasped  Jack;  and  he  felt  a 
dizziness  and  confusion  in  gazing  at  this  kind  of  an 
abyss. 

"And  it's  only  beginning!  It's  to  go  on  growing 
and  growing!  You  see  why  I  wanted  you  to  be  strong, 
Jack;  why  it  would  not  do  to  be  weak  if  you  had  all 
this  responsibility." 

This  was  a  form  of  apology  for  his  farewell  to  Jack, 
but  the  message  was  the  same:  He  had  not  wanted 
a  son  who  should  be  of  his  life  and  heart  and  ever  his 
in  faults  and  illnesses.  This  was  the  recognizable 


IN  THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  MILLIONS     233 

one  of  the  shadows  between  them  now  recalled.  He 
had  wanted  a  fresh  physical  machine  into  which  he 
could  blow  the  breath  of  his  own  masterful  being  and 
instil  the  cunning  of  his  experience.  He  saw  in  this 
straight,  clean-limbed  youth  at  his  side  the  hope  of 
Jack's  babyhood  fulfilled,  in  the  projection  of  his  own 
ego  as  a  living  thing  after  he  himself  was  gone. 

"And  it  is  to  go  on  growing  and  growing,  in  my  name 
and  your  name — John  Wingfield!" 

Jack  was  swallowing  spasmodically;  he  moistened 
his  lips;  he  grasped  the  balcony  railing  so  tight  that 
his  knuckles  were  white  knobs  on  the  bronze  back  of 
his  hand.  The  father  in  his  enthusiasm  hardly  noticed 
this. 

"What  couldn't  I  have  done,"  he  added,  "if  I  had 
had  all  this  to  begin  with!  All  that  you  will  have  to 
begin  with!" 

Jack  m.  naged  a  smile,  rather  thin  and  wavering. 

"Yes,  I  am  going  to  try  my  best." 

"All  I  ask!  You  have  me  for  a  teacher  and  I  know 
one  or  two  little  things!"  said  the  father,  fairly  grinning 
in  the  transmission  of  his  joke.  "Now,  you  must  be 
short  on  clothes,"  he  added;  "so  you  can  get  some- 
thing ready-made  downstairs  while  you  have  some 
making  at  Thompson's." 

"Don't  you  buy  your  clothes,  your  best  clothes, 
I  mean,  in  your  own  store?"  Jack  asked.  It  was  his 
first  question  in  getting  acquainted  with  his  future 
property. 

"No.  We  cater  to  a  little  bigger  class  of  trade — one 
of  the  many  twists  of  the  business,"  was  the  answer. 
"And  now  we'll  meet  at  dinner,  shall  we,  and  have  a 
good  long  talk,"  he  concluded,  closing  the  interview 


234  OVER  THE  PASS 

and  turning  to  the  door,  his  mind  snapping  back  to 
the  matter  he  was  about  to  take  up  when  he  had  been 
interrupted  with  more  eagerness  than  ever,  now  that 
his  egoism  thrilled  with  a  still  greater  purpose. 

"  I — I  left  my  hat  on  your  desk,"  Jack  explained,  as 
he  followed  his  father  into  the  office. 

"Well,  you  don't  want  to  be  carrying  packages 
about,"  said  John  Wingfield,  Sr.  "That  is  hardly  the 
fashion  in  New  York,  though  John  Wingfield's  son  can 
make  it  so  if  he  wants  to.  I'll  have  that  flat-brimmed 
western  one  sent  up  to  the  house  and  you  can  fit  out 
with  another  when  you  go  downstairs  for  clothes. 
That  is,  I  suppose  you  will  want  to  keep  this  as  a  me- 
mento, eh?"  and  he  held  out  the  cowpuncher,  sweep- 
ing it  with  a  sardonic  glance. 

"No,"  Jack  answered  decisively,  out  of  the  impulse 
that  came  with  the  sight  of  the  veteran  companion 
that  had  shielded  him  from  the  sun  on  the  trail.  It 
was  good  to  have  any  kind  of  an  impulse  after  his 
giddiness  on  the  balcony  at  sight  of  all  the  phantasma- 
goria of  detail  that  he  must  master. 

If  he  were  to  be  equal  to  this  future  there  must  be 
an  end  of  temptation.  He  must  shake  himself  free  of 
the  last  clinging  bit  of  chrysalis  of  the  old  life.  His 
amazed  father  saw  the  child  of  the  desert,  where  con- 
vention is  made  by  your  fancy  and  the  supply  of  water 
in  your  canteen,  go  to  the  window  and  raise  the  sash. 
Leaning  out,  he  let  the  hat  drop  into  Broadway,  with 
his  eyes  just  over  the  line  of  the  ledge  while  he  watched 
it  fall,  dipping  and  gliding,  to  the  feet  of  a  messenger 
boy,  who  picked  it  up,  waved  it  gleefully  aloft  before 
putting  it  over  his  cap,  and  with  mock  strides  of 
grandeur  went  his  way. 


IN  THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  MILLIONS     235 

"That  gave  him  a  lot  of  pleasure — and  a  remarkably 
quick  system  for  delivering  goods,  wasn't  it?"  said 
Jack,  cheerfully. 

"Yes,  I  should  say  so!"  assented  his  father,  return- 
ing to  his  seat.  "Dinner  at  seven!"  he  called  before 
the  door  closed;  and  as  his  finger  sought  one  of  the 
push-buttons  it  rested  for  a  moment  on  the  metal  edge 
of  the  socket,  his  head  bowed,  while  an  indefinable 
emotion,  mixed  of  prophecy  and  recollection,  must 
have  fluttered  through  the  routine  channels  of  his 
vigorous  mind. 


XXV 
"BUT  WITH  YOU,  YES,  SIR!" 

As  Jack  came  out  of  the  office,  Mortimer  appeared 
from  an  adjoining  room  in  furtive,  mouselike  curiosity. 

"Not  much  damage  done!"  said  Jack,  in  happy  re- 
lief from  the  ordeal.  "I  am  without  a  hat,  but  I  have 
the  rose."  He  held  it  up  before  Mortimer's  worn, 
kindly  face  that  had  been  so  genuine  in  welcome. 
"Yes,  I  must  have  kept  it  to  decorate  you,  Peter!" 

Ineffectually,  in  timorous  confusion,  the  old  secre- 
tary protested  while  Jack  fastened  it  in  his  button- 
hole. 

"And  you  are  going  to  help  me,  aren't  you,  Peter?" 
Jack  went  on,  seriously.  "You  are  going  to  hold  up 
a  finger  of  warning  when  I  get  off  the  course.  I  am  to 
be  practical,  matter-of-fact;  there's  to  be  an  end  to  all 
fantastic  ideas." 

An  end  to  all  fantastic  ideas!  But  it  was  hardly 
according  to  the  gospel  of  the  matter-of-fact  to  take 
Burleigh,  the  fitter,  out  to  luncheon.  Jack  might  ex- 
cuse himself  on  the  ground  that  he  had  not  yet  begun 
his  apprenticeship  and  had  several  hours  of  freedom 
before  his  first  lesson  at  dinner.  This  ecstasy  of  a 
recess,  perhaps,  made  him  lay  aside  the  derby,  which 
the  clerk  said  was  very  becoming,  and  choose  a  softer 
head-covering  with  a  bit  of  feather  in  the  band,  which 
the  clerk,  with  positive  enthusiasm,  said  was  still  more 
becoming.  At  all  events,  it  was  easy  on  his  temples, 
236 


"BUT  WITH  YOU,  YES,  SIR!"         237 

while  the  derby  was  stiff  and  binding  and  conducive 
to  a  certain  depression  of  spirits. 

Burleigh,  the  fitter,  was  almost  as  old  as  Mortimer. 
He  rose  to  the  exceptional  situation,  his  eyes  lighting 
as  he  surveyed  the  form  to  be  clothed  with  a  profes- 
sional gratification  unsurpassed  by  that  of  Dr.  Benning- 
ton  in  plotting  Jack's  chest  with  a  stethoscope. 

"Yes,  sir,  we  will  have  that  dinner-jacket  ready 
to-night,  sir,  depend  upon  it — and  couldn't  I  show  you 
something  in  cheviots?" 

Jack  broke  another  precedent.  A  Wingfield,  he 
decided  to  patronize  the  Wingfield  store,  because  he 
saw  how  supremely  happy  every  order  made  Burleigh. 

"You  can  do  it  as  well  as  Thompson's?"  he  asked. 

"With  you,  yes,  sir — though  Thompson  is  a  great 
expert  on  round  shoulders.  But  with  you,  yes,  sir!" 

When  the  business  of  measuring  was  over,  while 
Burleigh  peered  triumphant  over  the  pile  of  cloths 
from  which  the  masterpieces  were  to  be  fashioned, 
Jack  said  that  he  had  a  ripping  appetite  and  he  did  not 
see  why  he  and  Burleigh  should  not  appease  their 
hunger  in  company.  Burleigh  gasped;  then  he  grinned 
in  abandoned  delight  and  slipped  off  his  shiny  coat 
and  little  tailor's  apron  that  bristled  with  pins. 

They  went  to  a  restaurant  of  reputation,  which  Jack 
said  was  in  keeping  with  the  occasion  when  a  man 
changed  his  habits  from  Arizona  simplicity  to  urban 
multiplicity  of  courses.  And  what  did  Burleigh  like? 
Burleigh  admitted  that  if  he  were  a  plutocrat  he  would 
have  caviar  at  least  once  a  day;  and  caviar  appeared 
in  a  little  glass  cup  set  in  the  midst  of  cracked  ice, 
flanked  by  crisp  toast.  After  caviar  came  other  things 
to  Burleigh's  taste.  He  was  having  such  an  awe- 


238  OVER  THE  PASS 

somely  grand  feast  that  he  was  tongue-tied;  but  Jack 
could  never  eat  in  silence  until  he  had  forgotten  how 
to  tell  stories.  So  he  told  Burleigh  stories  of  the  trail 
and  of  life  in  Little  Rivers  in  a  way  that  reflected  the 
desert  sunshine  in  Burleigh's  eyes.  Burleigh  thought 
that  he  would  like  to  live  in  Little  Rivers.  Almost 
anyone  might  after  hearing  Jack's  description,  in  the 
joy  of  its  call  to  himself. 

"Now,  if  you  would  trust  me,"  said  Burleigh,  when 
they  left  the  restaurant,  "I  should  like  to  send  out  for 
some  cloths  not  in  stock  for  a  couple  of  suits.  And 
couldn't  I  make  you  up  three  or  four  fancy  waistcoats, 
with  a  little  color  in  them — the  right  color  to  go  with 
the  cloth?  You  can  carry  a  little  color — decidedly, 
yes." 

"Yes,  I  rather  like  color,"  said  Jack,  succumbing  to 
temptation,  though  he  felt  that  the  heir  to  great  re- 
sponsibilities ought  to  dress  in  the  most  neutral  of 
tones. 

"And  I  should  like  to  select  the  ties  to  go  with  the 
suits  and  a  few  shirts,  just  to  carry  out  my  scheme — a 
kind  of  professional  triumph  for  me,  you  see.  May  I?" 

"Go  ahead!"  said  Jack. 

"And  you  can  depend  on  your  evening  suit  to  be  up 
in  time.  But  I  am  going  to  rush  a  little  broader  braid 
on  those  ready-made  trousers — you  can  carry  that, 
too,"  Burleigh  concluded. 

When  they  parted  Jack  turned  into  Fifth  Avenue. 
Before  he  had  gone  a  block  the  bulky  eminence  of  a 
Fifth  Avenue  stage  awakened  his  imagination.  How 
could  anybody  think  of  confinement  in  a  taxicab  when 
he  might  ride  in  the  elephant's  howdah  of  that  top 
platform,  enjoying  mortal  superiority  over  surround- 


"BUT  WITH  YOU,  YES,  SIR!"        239 

ing  humanity?  Jack  hung  the  howdah  with  silken 
streamers  and  set  a  mahout's  turban  on  the  head  of 
the  man  on  the  seat  in  front  of  him,  while  the  glistening 
semi-oval  tops  of  the  limousines  floating  in  the  mist 
of  the  rising  grade  from  Madison  Square  to  Forty- 
second  Street,  swarmed  and  halted  in  a  kind  of  blind, 
cramped  pas  de  quatre  from  cross  street  to  cross  street, 
amid  the  breaking  surge  of  pedestrians. 

"Such  a  throbbing  of  machine  motion,"  he  thought, 
"that  I  don't  see  how  anybody  can  have  an  emotion 
of  his  own  without  bumping  into  somebody  else's." 

It  was  a  scene  of  another  age  and  world  to  him, 
puzzling,  overpowering,  dismal,  mocking  him  with  a 
sense  of  loneliness  that  he  had  never  felt  on  the 
desert.  Could  he  ever  catch  up  with  this  procession 
which  had  all  the  time  been  moving  on  in  the  five  years 
of  his  absence?  Could  he  learn  to  talk  and  think  in 
the  regulated  manner  of  the  traffic  rules  of  convention? 
The  few  chums  of  his  brief  home  school-days  were  long 
away  from  the  fellowship  of  academies;  they  had 
settled  in  their  grooves,  with  established  intimacies. 
If  he  found  his  own  flock  he  could  claim  admission  to 
the  fold  only  with  the  golden  key  of  his  millions,  rather 
than  by  the  password  of  kindred  understanding. 

The  tripping,  finely-clad  women,  human  flower  of 
all  the  maelstrom  of  urban  toil,  in  their  detachment 
seemed  only  to  bring  up  a  visualized  picture  of  Mary. 
What  would  he  not  like  to  do  for  her!  He  wished  that 
he  could  pick  up  the  Waldorf  and  set  it  on  the  other 
side  of  the  street  as  a  proof  of  the  overmastering  desire 
that  possessed  him  whenever  she  was  in  his  mind. 

And  the  Doge!  He  was  the  wisest  man  in  the 
world.  With  a  nod  of  well-considered  and  easy  gener- 


240  OVER  THE  PASS 

osity  Jack  presented  him  with  the  new  Public  Library. 
And  then  all  the  people  on  the  sidewalks  vanished 
and  the  buildings  melted  away  into  sunswept  levels, 
and  the  Avenue  was  a  trail  down  which  Mary  came 
on  her  pony  in  the  resplendent  sufficiency  of  his  dreams. 
"Great  heavens!"  he  warned  himself.  "And  I  am 
to  take  my  first  lesson  in  running  the  business  this 
evening!  What  perfect  lunacy  comes  from  mistaking 
the  top  of  a  Fifth  Avenue  stage  for  a  howdah!" 


XXVI 

THE  PORTRAIT  OF  A  LADY 

How  thankful  he  was  that  the  old  brick  corner 
mansion  in  Madison  Avenue,  with  age  alone  to  recom- 
mend its  architecture  of  the  seventies — let  it  stand 
for  what  it  was — had  not  been  replaced  by  one  of  stone 
freshly  polished  each  year!  The  butler  who  opened 
the  door  was  new  and  stiffer  than  the  one  of  the  old 
days;  but  he  saw  that  the  broad  hall,  with  the  stairs 
running  across  the  rear  in  their  second  flight,  was 
little  more  changed  than  the  exterior. 

Five  years  since  he  had  left  that  hall!  He  was  in 
the  thrall  of  anticipation  incident  to  seeing  old  asso- 
ciations with  the  eyes  of  manhood.  The  butler  made 
to  take  his  hat,  but  Jack,  oblivious  of  the  attention, 
went  on  to  the  doorway  of  the  drawing-room,  his 
look  centering  on  a  portrait  that  faced  the  door.  In 
this  place  of  honor  he  saw  a  Gainsborough.  He 
uttered  a  note  of  pained  surprise. 

"There  used  to  be  another  portrait  here.  Where 
is  it?"  he  demanded. 

The  butler,  who  had  heard  that  the  son  of  the  house 
was  an  invalid,  had  not  recovered  from  his  astonishment 
at  the  appearance  of  health  of  the  returned  prodigal. 

"Upstairs,  sir,"  he  answered.  "When  Mr.  Wing- 
field  got  this  prize  last  year,  sir " 

Though  the  butler  had  spoken  hardly  a  dozen 
words,  he  became  conscious  of  something  atmospheric 
that  made  him  stop  in  the  confusion  of  one  who  finds 
241 


242  OVER  THE  PASS 

that  he  has  been  garrulous  with  an  explanation  that 
does  not  explain. 

"Please  take  this  upstairs  and  bring  back  the  other," 
said  Jack. 

"Yes,  sir.  You  will  be  going  to  your  room,  sir,  and 
while — "  The  butler  had  a  feeling  of  a  troublesome 
future  between  two  masters. 

"Now,  please !"  said  Jack,  settling  into  a  chair  to  wait. 

The  Gainsborough  countess,  with  her  sweeping 
plumes,  her  rich,  fleshy,  soft  tones,  her  charming 
affectation,  which  gave  you,  after  the  art  interest,  no 
more  human  interest  in  her  than  in  a  draped  model, 
was  carried  upstairs  and  back  came  the  picture  that 
it  had  displaced.  The  frame  still  bore  at  the  bottom 
the  title  "Portrait  of  a  Lady,"  under  which  it  had 
been  exhibited  at  the  Salon  many  years  ago.  It  was 
by  a  young  artist,  young  then,  named  Sargent.  He 
had  the  courage  of  his  method,  this  youngster,  no  less 
than  Hals,  who  also  worked  his  wonders  with  little 
paint  when  this  suited  his  genius  best.  The  gauze 
of  the  gown  where  it  blended  with  the  background 
at  the  edge  of  the  line  of  arm  was  so  thin,  seemingly 
made  by  a  single  brush-stroke,  that  it  almost  showed 
the  canvas. 

A  purpose  in  that  gauze:  The  thinness  of  trans- 
parency of  character!  The  eyes  of  the  portrait  alone 
seemed  deep.  They  were  lambent  and  dark,  looking 
straight  ahead  inquiringly,  yet  in  the  knowledge  that 
no  answer  to  the  Great  Riddle  could  change  the  course 
of  her  steps  in  the  blind  alley  of  a  life  whose  tenement 
walls  were  lighted  with  her  radiance.  You  could  see 
through  the  gown,  through  the  flesh  of  that  frail  figure, 
so  lacking  in  sensuousness  yet  so  glowing  with  a  quiet 


THE  PORTRAIT  OF  A  LADY          243 

fire,  to  the  soul  itself.  She  seemed  of  such  a  delicate, 
chaste  fragility  that  she  could  be  shattered  by  a  single 
harsh  touch.  There  would  be  no  outcry  except  the 
tinkle  of  the  fragments.  The  feelings  of  anyone  who 
witnessed  the  breaking  and  heard  the  tinkle  would  be 
a  criterion  of  his  place  in  the  wide  margin  between 
nerveless  barbarism  and  sensitive  gentility. 

"I  give!    I  give!    I  give!"  was  her  message. 

For  a  long  time,  he  had  no  measure  of  it,  Jack  sat 
studying  the  portrait,  set  clear  in  many  scenes  of 
memory  in  review.  It  had  been  a  face  as  changeful 
as  the  travels,  ever  full  of  quick  lights  and  quick 
shadows.  He  had  had  flashes  of  it  as  it  was  in  the 
portrait  in  its  very  triumph  of  resignation.  He  had 
known  it  laughing  with  stories  of  fancy  which  she  told 
him;  sympathetic  in  tutorial  illumination  as  she  gave 
him  lessons  and  brought  out  the  meaning  of  a  line  of 
poetry  or  a  painting;  beset  by  the  restlessness  which 
meant  another  period  of  travel;  intense  as  fire  itself, 
gripping  his  hands  in  hers  in  a  defiance  of  possession; 
in  moods  when  both  its  sadness  and  its  playfulness 
said,  "I  don't  care!"  and  again,  fleeing  from  his  pres- 
ence to  hide  her  tears. 

It  was  with  the  new  sight  of  man's  maturity  and 
soberness  that  he  now  saw  his  mother,  feeling  the  in- 
tangible and  indestructible  feminine  majesty  of  her; 
feeling  her  fragility  which  had  brought  forth  her  living 
soul  in  its  beauty  and  impressionableness  as  a  link  with 
the  cause  of  his  Odyssey;  believing  that  she  was  re- 
joicing in  his  strength  and  understanding  gloriously 
that  it  had  only  brought  him  nearer  to  her. 

After  he  had  been  to  his  room  to  dress  he  returned 
to  the  same  chair  and  settled  into  the  same  reverie 


244  OVER  THE  PASS 

that  was  sounding  depths  of  his  being  that  he  had 
never  suspected.  He  was  mutely  asking  her  help,  ask- 
ing the  support  of  her  frail,  feminine  courage  for  his 
masculine  courage  in  the  battle  before  him;  and  little 
tremors  of  nervous  determination  were  running  through 
him,  when  he  heard  his  father's  footstep  and  became 
conscious  of  his  father's  presence  in  the  doorway. 

There  was  a  moment,  not  of  hesitation  but  of  com- 
pleting a  thought,  before  he  looked  up  and  rose  to  his 
feet.  In  that  moment  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  had  his  own 
shock  over  the  change  in  the  room.  The  muscles  of 
his  face  twitched  in  irritation,  as  if  his  wife's  very 
frailty  were  baffling  invulnerability.  Straightening  his 
features  into  a  mask,  his  eyes  still  spoke  his  emotion 
in  a  kind  of  stare  of  resentment  at  the  picture. 

Then  he  saw  his  son's  shoulders  rising  above  his  own 
and  looked  into  his  son's  eyes  to  see  them  smiling. 
Long  isolated  by  his  power  from  clashes  of  will  under 
the  roof  of  his  store  or  his  house,  the  father  had  a 
sense  of  the  rippling  flash  of  steel  blades.  A  word 
might  start  a  havoc  of  whirling,  burning  sentences, 
confusing  and  stifling  as  a  desert  sandstorm;  or  it  might 
bring  a  single  killing  flash  out  of  gathering  clouds. 

Thus  the  two  were  facing  each  other  in  a  silence 
oppressive  to  both,  which  neither  knew  how  to  break, 
when  relief  came  in  the  butler's  announcement  of 
dinner.  Indeed,  by  such  small,  objective  interrup- 
tions do  dynamic  inner  impulses  hang  that  this  little 
thing  may  have  suppressed  the  lightnings. 

The  father  was  the  first  to  speak.  He  hoped  that  a 
first  day  in  New  York  had  brought  Jack  a  good  appe- 
tite; certainly,  he  could  see  that  the  store  had  given 
him  a  wonderful  fit  for  a  rush  order. 


XXVII 
BY  RIGHT  OF  ANCESTRY 

There  were  to  be  no  stories  of  Little  Rivers  at  din- 
ner; no  questions  asked  about  desert  life.  This  chap- 
ter of  Jack's  career  was  a  past  rung  of  the  ladder  to 
John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  who  was  ever  looking  up  to  the 
rungs  above.  The  magnetism  and  charm  with  which 
he  won  men  to  his  service  now  turned  to  the  immediate 
problem  of  his  son,  whom  he  was  to  refashion  according 
to  his  ideas. 

"Are  you  ready  to  settle  down?"  he  asked,  half 
fearful  lest  that  scene  in  the  drawing-room  might  have 
wrought  a  change  of  purpose. 

In  answer  he  was  seeing  another  Jack;  a  Jack  re- 
laxed, amiable,  even  amenable. 

"If  you  have  the  patience,"  said  Jack.  "You  know, 
father,  I  haven't  a  cash-register  mind.  I'm  starting 
out  on  a  new  trail  and  I  am  likely  to  go  lame  at  times. 
But  I  mean  to  be  game." 

He  looked  very  frankly  and  earnestly  into  his  father's 
eyes. 

"Wild  oats  sown!  My  boy,  after  all!"  thought  the 
father.  "Respected  his  mother!  Well,  didn't  I  re- 
spect mine?  Of  course — and  let  him!  It  is  good 
principles.  It  is  right.  He  has  health;  that  is  better 
than  schooling." 

In  place  of  the  shock  of  the  son's  will  against  his, 
he  was  feeling  it  as  a  force  which  might  yet  act  in 
245 


246  OVER  THE  PASS 

unison  with  his.  He  expanded  with  the  pride  of  the 
fortune-builder.  He  told  how  a  city  within  a  city  is 
created  and  run;  of  tentacles  of  investment  and  enter- 
prise stretching  beyond  the  store  in  illimitable  ambi- 
tion; how  the  ball  of  success,  once  it  was  set  rolling, 
gathered  bulk  of  its  own  momentum  and  ever  needed 
closer  watching  to  keep  it  clear  of  obstacles. 

"And  I  am  to  stand  on  top  like  a  gymnast  on  a 
sphere  or  be  rolled  under,"  thought  Jack.  "And  I'll 
have  cloth  of  gold  breeches  and  a  balancing  pole  tipped 
with  jewels;  but — but ' 

"A  good  listener,  and  that  is  a  lot!"  thought  the 
father,  happily. 

Jack  had  interrupted  neither  with  questions  nor 
vagaries.  He  was  gravely  attentive,  marveling  over 
this  story  of  a  man's  labor  and  triumph. 

"And  the  way  to  learn  the  business  is  not  from  talks 
by  me,"  said  his  father,  finally.  "You  cannot  begin 
at  the  top." 

"No!  no!"  said  Jack,  aghast.  "The  top  would  be 
quite  too  insecure,  too  dizzy  to  start  with." 

"Right!"  the  father  exclaimed,  decidedly.  "You 
must  learn  each  department  of  itself,  and  then  how 
it  works  in  with  the  others.  It  will  be  drudgery,  but 
it  is  best— right  at  the  bottom!" 

"Yes,  father,  where  there  is  no  danger  of  a  fall." 

"You  will  be  put  on  an  apprentice  salary  of  ten 
dollars  a  week." 

"And  I'll  try  to  earn  it." 

"Of  course,  you  understand  that  the  ten  is  a  charge 
against  the  store.  That's  business.  But  as  for  a 
private  allowance,  you  are  John  Wingfield's  son 
and " 


BY  RIGHT  OF  ANCESTRY  247 

"I  think  I  have  enough  of  my  own  for  the  present," 
Jack  put  in. 

"As  you  wish.  But  if  you  need  more,  say  the  word. 
And  you  shall  name  the  department  where  you  are 
to  begin.  Did  you  get  any  idea  of  which  you'd  choose 
from  looking  the  store  over  to-day?" 

"That's  very  considerate  of 'you!"  Jack  answered. 
He  was  relieved  and  pleased  and  made  his  choice 
quickly,  though  he  mentioned  it  half  timidly  as  if  he 
feared  that  it  might  be  ridiculous,  so  uncertain  was 
he  about  the  rules  of  apprenticeship. 

"You  see  I  have  been  used  to  the  open  air  and  I'd 
like  a  little  time  in  which  to  acclimatize  myself  in 
New  York.  Now,  all  those  big  wagons  that  bring 
the  goods  in  and  the  little  wagons  that  take  them  out — 
there  is  an  out-of-door  aspect  to  the  delivery  service. 
Is  that  an  important  branch  to  learn?" 

"Very — getting  the  goods  to  the  customer — very!" 

"Then  I'll  start  with  that  and  sort  of  a  roving  com- 
mission to  look  over  the  other  departments." 

"Good!  We  will  consider  it  settled.  And,  Jack, 
every  man's  labor  that  you  can  save  and  retain  effi- 
ciency— that  is  the  trick!  Organization  and  ideas, 
that's  what  makes  the  employer  and  so  makes  success. 
Why,  Jack,  if  you  could  cut  down  the  working  costs 
in  the  delivery  department  or  improve  the  service 
at  the  present  cost,  why — "  John  Wingfield,  Sr., 
rubbed  the  palms  of  his  hands  together  delightedly. 

Everything  was  going  finely — so  far.  He  added 
that  proviso  of  so  far  instinctively. 

"Besides,  Jack,"  he  went  on,  changing  to  another 
subject  that  was  equally  vital  to  his  ego,  "this  name 
of  Wingfield  is  something  to  work  for.  I  was  the  son 


248  OVER  THE  PASS 

of  a  poor  New  England  clergyman,  but  there  is  family 
back  of  it;  good  blood,  good  blood!  I  was  not  the 
first  John  Wingfield  and  you  shall  not  be  the  last!" 

He  rose  from  the  table,  bidding  the  servant  to  bring 
the  coffee  to  the  drawing-room.  With  the  same 
light,  quick  step  that  he  ascended  the  flights  in  the 
store,  he  led  the  way  downstairs,  his  face  alive  with 
the  dramatic  anticipation  that  it  had  worn  when  he 
took  Jack  out  of  the  office  to  look  down  from  the 
balcony  of  the  court. 

"Ah,  we  have  something  besides  the  store,  Jack!" 
he  was  saying,  in  the  very  exultation  of  the  pride  of 
possession,  as  he  went  to  the  opposite  side  of  the 
mantel  from  the  mother's  portrait  and  turned  on  the 
reflector  over  a  picture. 

Jack  saw  a  buccaneer  under  the  brush  of  the  gold 
and  the  shadows  of  Spain;  a  robust,  ready  figure  on 
fighting  edge,  who  seemed  to  say,  "After  you,  sir;  and, 
then,  pardon  me,  but  it's  your  finish,  sir!" 

"It's  a  Velasquez!"  Jack  exclaimed. 

"And  you  knew  that  at  a  glance!"  said  his  father. 

"Why,  yes!" 

"Not  many  Velasquezes  in  America,"  said  the  father, 
thinking,  incidentally,  that  his  son  would  not  have 
to  pay  the  dealers  a  heavy  toll  for  an  art  education, 
while  he  revelled  in  a  surprise  that  he  was  evidently 
holding  back. 

"Or  many  better  Velasquezes  than  this,  anywhere," 
added  Jack.  "What  mastery!  What  a  gift  from 
heaven  that  was  vouchsafed  to  a  human  being  to 
paint  like  that!" 

He  was  in  a  spell,  held  no  less  by  the  painter's  art 
than  by  the  subject. 


BY  RIGHT  OF  ANCESTRY  249 

"Absolutely  a  certified  Velasquez,  bought  from  the 
estate  of  Count  Galting,"  continued  his  father.  "I 
paid  a  cool  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  for  it. 
And  that  isn't  all,  Jack,  that  isn't  all  that  you  are 
going  to  drudge  for  as  an  apprentice  in  the  delivery 
department.  I  know  what  I  am  talking  about.  I 
wasn't  fooled  by  any  of  the  genealogists  who  manu- 
facture ancestors.  I  had  it  all  looked  up  by  four 
experts,  checking  one  off  against  another." 

"Yes,"  answered  Jack,  absently.  He  had  hardly 
heard  his  father's  words.  In  fervent  scrutiny  he  was 
leaning  forward,  his  weight  on  the  ball  of  the  foot, 
the  attitude  of  the  man  in  the  picture. 

"And  who  do  you  think  he  is — who?"  pursued 
John  Wingfield,  Sr. 

"A  man  who  fought  face  to  face  with  the  enemy;  a 
man  whom  men  followed!  Velasquez  caught  all 
that!"  answered  Jack. 

"That  old  fellow  was  a  great  man  in  his  day — a  great 
Englishman — and  his  name  was  John  Wingfield!  He 
was  your  ancestor  and  mine!" 

After  a  quick  breath  of  awakening  comprehension 
Jack  took  a  step  nearer  the  portrait,  all  his  faculties 
in  the  throe  of  beaming  inquiry  of  Senor  Don't  Care 
and  desert  freedom,  in  the  self -same,  alert  readiness  of 
pose  as  the  figure  he  was  facing. 

"They  say  I  resemble  him!"  The  father  repeated 
that  phrase  which  he  had  used  in  benignant  satis- 
faction to  many  a  guest;  but  now  seeing  with  greedy 
eyes  a  likeness  between  his  son  and  the  ancestor  deeper 
than  mere  resemblance  of  feature,  he  added:  "But 
you — you,  Jack,  you're  the  dead  spit  of  him!" 

"Yes,"  said  Jack,  as  if  he  either  were  not  surprised 


250  OVER  THE  PASS 

or  were  too  engrossed  to  be  interested.  To  the  bucca- 
neer's "After  you,  sir;  and,  then,  your  finish,  sir!" 
he  seemed  to  be  saying,  in  the  fully-lived  spirit  of 
imagination:  "A  good  epitaph,  sir!  I'll  see  that  it 
is  written  on  your  tombstone!" 

The  father,  singularly  affected  by  the  mutual  and 
enjoyed  challenge  that  he  was  witnessing,  half  ex- 
pected to  see  a  sword  leap  out  of  the  scabbard  of 
the  canvas  and  another  from  Jack's  side. 

"If  he  had  lived  in  our  day,"  said  the  father,  "he 
would  have  built  himself  a  great  place;  he  would  have 
been  the  head  of  a  great  institution,  just  as  I  am." 

"Two  centuries  is  a  long  way  to  fetch  a  comparison," 
answered  Jack,  hazily,  out  of  a  corner  of  his  brain  still 
reserved  for  conversation,  while  all  the  rest  of  it  was 
centered  elsewhere.  "He  might  have  been  a  cow- 
puncher,  a  revolutionist,  or  an  aviator.  Certainly, 
he  would  never  have  been  a  camp-follower." 

"At  all  events,  a  man  of  power.     It's  in  the  blood !" 

"It's  in  the  blood!"  Jack  repeated,  with  a  sort  of 
staring,  lingering  emphasis.  He  was  hearing  Mary's 
protest  on  the  pass;  her  final,  mysterious  reason  for 
sending  him  away;  her  "  It's  not  in  the  blood !"  There 
could  be  no  connection  between  this  and  the  ancestor; 
yet,  in  the  stirred  depths  of  his  nature,  probing  the 
inheritance  in  his  veins,  her  hurt  cry  had  come  echoing 
to  his  ears. 

"Why,  I  would  have  paid  double  the  price  rather 
than  not  have  got  that  picture!"  the  father  went  on. 
"  There  is  a  good  deal  of  talk  about  family  trees  in  this 
town  and  a  strong  tendency  in  some  quarters  for 
second  generations  of  wealth  to  feel  a  little  superiority 
over  the  first  generation.  Here  I  come  along  with 


BY  RIGHT  OF  ANCESTRY  251 

an  ancestor  eight  generations  back,  painted  by  Velas- 
quez. I  tell  you  it  was  something  of  a  sensation  when 
I  exhibited  him  in  the  store!" 

"You — you — "  and  Jack  glanced  at  his  father  per- 
plexedly; "you  exhibited  him  in  the  store!"  he  said. 

"Why,  yes,  as  a  great  Velasquez  I  had  just  bought. 
I  didn't  advertise  him  as  my  ancestor,  of  course.  Still, 
the  fact  got  around;  yes,  the  fact  got  around,  Jack." 

While  Jack  studied  the  picture,  his  father  studied 
Jack,  whose  face  and  whose  manner  of  blissful  chal- 
lenge to  all  comers  in  the  unconcern  of  easy  fatality 
and  ready  blade  seemed  to  grow  more  and  more  like 
that  of  the  first  John  Wingfield.  At  length,  Jack 
passed  over  to  the  other  side  of  the  mantel  and  turned 
on  the  reflector  over  the  portrait  of  his  mother;  and, 
in  turn,  standing  silently  before  her  all  his  militancy 
was  gone  and  in  its  place  came  the  dreamy  softness 
with  which  he  would  watch  the  Eternal  Painter  cloud- 
rolling  on  the  horizon.  And  he  was  like  her  not  in 
features,  not  in  the  color  of  hair  or  eyes,  but  in  a  pe- 
culiar sensitiveness,  distinguished  no  less  by  a  fatalism 
of  its  own  kind  than  was  the  cheery  aggressiveness  of 
the  buccaneer. 

"Yes,  father,"  he  said,  "that  old  ruffian  forebear  of 
ours  could  swear  and  could  kill.  But  he  had  the  virtue 
of  truth.  He  could  not  act  or  live  a  lie.  And  I  guess 
something  else — how  supremely  gentle  he  could  be 
before  a  woman  like  her.  Velasquez  brought  out  a 
joyous  devil  and  Sargent  brought  out  a  soull" 

John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  who  stood  by  the  grate,  was 
drumming  nervously  on  the  mantel.  The  drumming 
ceased.  The  fingers  rested  rigid  and  white  on  the 
dark  wood.  Alive  to  another  manifestation  of  the 


252  OVER  THE  PASS 

lurking  force  in  his  son,  he  hastened  to  change  the 
subject. 

"  I  had  almost  forgotten  that  you  always  had  a  taste 
for  art,  Jack." 

"Yes,  from  her;"  which  was  hardly  changing  the 
subject. 

"As  for  the  first  John  Wingfield,  you  may  be  sure 
that  I  wanted  to  know  everything  there  was  to  know 
about  the  old  fellow,"  said  the  father.  "So  I  set  a 
lot  of  bookworms  looking  up  the  archives  of  the  English 
and  Spanish  governments  and  digging  around  in  the 
libraries  after  material.  Then  I  had  it  all  put  together 
in  proper  shape  by  a  literary  sharp." 

"You  have  that!"  cried  Jack.  "You  have  the 
framework  from  which  you  can  build  the  whole  story 
of  him — the  story  of  how  he  fought  and  how  Velasquez 
came  to  paint  him?  Oh,  I  want  to  read  it!" 

With  an  unexplored  land  between  gilt-tooled  covers 
under  his  arm  he  went  upstairs  early,  in  the  transport 
of  wanderlust  that  had  sent  him  away  over  the  sand 
from  Little  Rivers.  Si,  si,  Firio,  outward  bound, 
camp  under  the  stars!  If  Senor  Don't  Care's  desert 
journeys  were  over — and  he  had  no  thought  but  that 
they  were — there  was  no  ban  on  travelling  in  fancy 
over  sea  trails  in  the  ancestor's  company. 

Jack  was  with  the  buccaneer  when  he  boarded  the 
enemy  at  the  head  of  his  men;  with  him  before  the 
Board  of  Admiralty  when,  a  young  captain  of  twenty- 
two,  he  refused  to  lie  to  save  his  skin;  with  him  when, 
in  answer  to  the  scolding  of  Elizabeth,  then  an  old 
woman,  he  said:  "It  is  glorious  for  one  who  fought 
so  hard  for  Your  Majesty  to  have  the  recognition  even 
of  Your  Majesty's  chiding  in  answer  to  the  protest  of 


BY  RIGHT  OF  ANCESTRY  253 

•the  Spanish  ambassador,"  which  won  Elizabeth's 
reversal  of  the  Admiralty's  decision;  with  him  when, 
in  a  later  change  of  fortune,  he  went  to  the  court  of 
Spain  for  once  on  a  mission  which  required  a  sheathed 
blade;  with  him  when  the  dark  eye  of  Velasquez,  who 
painted  men  and  women  of  his  time  while  his  colleagues 
were  painting  Madonnas,  glowed  with  a  discoverer's 
joy  at  sight  of  this  fair-haired  type  of  the  enemy, 
whom  he  led  away  to  his  studio. 

More  than  once  was  there  mention  of  the  fact  that 
this  terrible  fighter  was  gentle  with  women  and  fonder 
of  the  company  of  children  than  of  statesmen  or  court- 
iers. He  had  married  the  daughter  of  a  great  mer- 
chant, a  delicate  type  of  beauty;  the  last  to  fascinate 
a  buccaneer,  according  to  the  gossips  of  the  time. 
Rumor  had  it  that  he  had  taken  her  for  the  where- 
withal to  pay  the  enormous  debts  contracted  in  his 
latest  exploit.  To  disprove  this  he  went  to  sea  in 
a  temper  with  a  frigate  and  came  back  laden  with  the 
treasure  of  half  a  dozen  galleons,  to  find  that  his  wife 
had  died  at  the  birth  of  a  son.  He  promised  himself 
to  settle  down  for  good;  but  the  fog  of  London  choked 
lungs  used  to  soft  airs;  he  heard  the  call  of  the  sun  and 
was  away  again  to  seek  adventure  in  the  broiling 
reaches  of  the  Caribbean.  A  man  of  restless,  wild 
spirit,  breathing  inconsistencies  incomprehensible  to 
the  conventions  of  Whitehall !  And  his  son  had  turned 
a  Cromwellian,  who,  in  poverty,  sought  refuge  in 
America  when  Charles  II.  came  to  the  throne;  and  from 
him,  in  the  vicissitudes  of  five  generations,  the  poor 
clergyman  was  descended. 

Thus  ran  the  tale  in  its  completeness.  The  end  of 
the  ancestor's  career  had  been  in  keeping  with  its 


254  OVER  THE  PASS 

character  and  course.  He  had  been  spared  the  slow 
decay  of  faculties  in  armchair  reminiscence.  He  had 
gone  down  in  his  ship  without  striking  his  colors, 
fighting  the  Spaniards  one  to  three.  When  Jack 
closed  the  cover  on  the  last  page  tenderly  and  in  en- 
raptured understanding,  it  was  past  midnight. 

The  spaciousness  of  the  sea  under  clouds  of  battle 
smoke  had  melted  into  the  spaciousness  of  the  desert 
under  the  Eternal  Painter's  canopy.  Then  four  walls 
of  a  bedroom  in  Madison  Avenue  materialized,  shutting 
out  the  horizon;  a  carpet  in  place  of  sand  formed  the 
floor;  and  in  place  of  a  blanket  roll  was  a  canopied 
bed  upon  which  a  servant  had  laid  out  a  suit  of  pajamas. 
In  the  impulse  of  a  desire  to  look  into  the  face  of  the 
first  John  Wingfield  in  the  light  of  all  he  now  knew, 
Jack  went  downstairs,  and  in  the  silence  of  the  house 
drank  in  the  portrait  again. 

"You  splendid  old  devil,  you!"  he  breathed,  under- 
standingly.  "How  should  you  like  to  start  out  de- 
livering goods  with  me  in  the  morning?" 


XXVIII 
JACK  GETS  A  RAISE 

The  next  morning  Jack  went  down  town  with  his 
father  in  the  limousine.  About  an  hour  later,  after 
he  had  been  introduced  to  the  head  of  the  delivery 
division,  he  was  on  his  way  up  town  beside  a  driver  of 
one  of  the  wagons  on  the  Harlem  route.  He  was  in 
the  uniform  of  the  Wingfield  light  cavalry,  having 
obtained  a  cap  with  embroidered  initials  on  the  front. 
The  driver  was  like  to  burst  from  inward  mirth,  and 
Jack  was  regarding  the  prospect  with  veritable  juve- 
nile zest. 

At  dinner  that  evening  John  Wingfield,  Jr.,  narrated 
his  experiences  of  the  day  to  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  with 
the  simplicity  and  verisimilitude  that  always  make 
for  both  realism  and  true  comedy. 

"But,  Jack,  you  took  me  too  literally!  It  is  hardly 
in  keeping  with  your  position!  You — 

"Why,  I  thought  that  the  only  way  to  know  the 
whole  business  was  to  play  every  part.  Didn't  you 
ever  deliver  packages  in  person  in  your  early  days?" 

"I  can't  say  that  I  did!"  the  father  admitted  wryly. 

"Then  it  seems  to  me  that  you  missed  one  of  the 
most  entertaining  and  instructive  features,"  Jack 
continued.  "You  cannot  imagine  the  majestic  femi- 
nine disdain  with  which  you  may  be  informed  that 
a  five-cent  bar  of  soap  should  be  delivered  at  the  back 
door  instead  of  the  front  door.  The  most  indignant 
255 


256  OVER  THE  PASS 

example  was  a  red-haired  woman  who  was  doing  her 
own  work  in  a  flat.  She  fairly  blazed.  She  wanted 
to  know  if  I  didn't  know  what  dumb-waiters  were  for." 

"And  what  did  you  say?"  the  father  asked  wearily; 
for  the  ninth  John  Wingfield  had  a  limited  sense  of 
humor. 

"Oh,  I  try,  however  irritating  the  circumstances, 
to  be  most  courtly,  for  the  honor  of  the  store,"  said 
Jack.  "I  told  her  that  I  was  very  sorry  and  I  would 
speak  to  you  in  person  about  the  mistake." 

"You  mean  that  you  admitted  who  you  were?" 

"Oh,  no!  The  red-haired  woman  laughed  and  took 
the  package  in  at  the  front  door,"  Jack  responded. 
Anybody  in  Little  Rivers  would  have  understood 
just  how  he  looked  and  smiled  and  why  it  was  that 
the  red-haired  woman  laughed. 

"Jack — now,  really,  Jack,  this  is  not  quite  dig- 
nified!" expostulated  the  father.  "What  do  you 
think  your  ancestor  would  say  to  it?" 

"I  suspect  that  he  would  have  made  an  even  more 
ingratiating  bow  to  the  lady  than  I  could,"  said  Jack, 
thoughtfully.  "They  had  the  grand  manner  better 
developed  in  his  day  than  in  ours." 

In  the  ensuing  weeks  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  dwelt 
in  a  kind  of  infernal  wonder  about  his  son.  He  was 
cheered  when  some  friend  of  his  world  who  had  met 
Jack  in  the  garb  of  his  caste,  as  fitted  by  Burleigh, 
would  say:  "Fine,  strapping  son  you  have  there, 
Wingfield!"  He  was  abashed  and  dumfounded  when 
Jack  announced  that  he  had  taken  Mamie  Devore, 
who  sold  culinary  utensils  in  the  basement,  out  to 
luncheon  with,  her  "steady  company,"  Joe  Mathewson, 
driver  of  one  of  the  warehouse  trucks. 


JACK  GETS  A  RAISE  257 

"They  were  a  little  awed  at  first,"  Jack  explained, 
"but  they  soon  became  natural.  I  don't  know  any- 
thing pleasanter  than  making  people  feel  perfectly 
natural,  do  you?  You  see,  Joe  and  Mamie  are  very 
real,  father,  and  most  businesslike;  an  ambitious, 
upstanding  pair.  They're  going  to  have  two  thousand 
dollars  saved  before  they  marry. 

"  'I  don't  believe  that  a  woman  ought  to  work  out 
after  she's  married/  was  the  way  Joe  put  it.  And 
Mamie,  with  her  eyes  fairly  devouring  him,  snapped 
back:  'No,  she'd  have  enough  to  do  looking  after 
you,  you  big  old  bluff!' 

"Mamie  is  a  wiry  little  thing  and  Joe  is  a  heavy- 
weight, with  a  hand  almost  as  big  as  a  baseball  mit. 
That's  partly  why  their  practical  romance  is  so  fasci- 
nating. Why,  it's  wonderful  the  stories  that  are 
playing  themselves  out  in  that  big  store,  father!  Well, 
you  see  Joe  is  on  a  stint — two  thousand  before  he 
gets  Mamie.  He  had  been  making  money  on  the 
side  nights  in  boxing  bouts.  But  Mamie  stopped 
the  fighting.  She  said  she  was  not  going  to  have  a 
husband  with  the  tip  of  his  nose  driven  up  between 
his  eyes  like  a  bull-dog's.  And  what  do  you  imagine 
they  are  going  to  do  with  the  two  thousand?  Buy  a 
farm!  Isn't  that  corking!" 

John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  shrugged  his  shoulders,  but 
did  not  express  his  feelings  with  any  remark.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  Jack  must  have  been  born  without 
a  sense  of  proportion. 

With  the  breaking  of  spring,  when  gardens  were 
beginning  to  sprout,  Jack  broadened  his  study  to  the 
trails  of  Westchester,  Long  Island,  and  New  Jersey, 
coursed  by  the  big  automobile  vans  of  the  suburban 


258  OVER  THE  PASS 

delivery.  To  thje  people  of  the  store,  whose  streets 
he  traversed  at  will  in  unremitting  wonder  over  its 
varied  activities,  he  had  brought  something  of  the 
same  sensation  that  he  had  to  an  Arizona  town.  He 
came  to  know  the  employees  by  name,  even  as  he  had 
his  neighbors  in  Little  Rivers.  He  nodded  to  the 
clerks  as  he  passed  down  an  aisle.  They  watched 
for  his  coming  and  brightened  with  his  approach  and 
met  his  smile  with  their  smiles.  In  their  idle  mo- 
ments he  would  stop  and  talk  of  the  desert. 

Although  he  was  learning  to  like  the  store  as  a  com- 
munity of  human  beings  its  business  was  as  the  works 
of  a  watch,  when  all  he  knew  was  how  to  tell  the 
time  by  the  face.  But  he  tried  hard  to  learn;  tried 
until  his  head  was  dizzy  with  a  whirl  of  dissociated 
facts,  which  he  knew  ought  to  be  associated,  and 
under  the  call  of  his  utter  restlessness  would  disappear 
altogether  for  two  or  three  days. 

"Relieving  the  pressure!  It's  a  safety-valve  so  I 
sha'n't  blow  up,"  he  explained  to  his  father,  sadly. 

"Take  your  time,"  said  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  having 
in  mind  a  recent  talk  with  Dr.  Bennington. 

Jack  listened  faithfully  to  his  father's  clear-cut 
lessons.  He  asked  questions  which  only  made  his 
father  sigh;  for  they  had  little  to  do  with  the  economy 
of  working  costs.  All  his  suggestions  were  extrava- 
gant; they  would  contribute  to  the  joy  of  the  em- 
ployees, but  not  to  profit.  And  other  questions  made 
his  father  frown  in  devising  answers  which  were  in 
the  nature  of  explanations.  Born  of  his  rambling  and 
humanly  observant  relations  with  every  department, 
they  led  into  the  very  heart  of  things  in  that  mighty 
organization.  There  were  times  when  it  was  hard 


JACK  GETS  A  RAISE  259 

for  him  to  control  his  indignation.  There  were  trails 
leading  to  the  room  with  the  glass-paneled  door  marked 
"Private"  which  he  half  feared  to  pursue. 

Thus,  between  father  and  son  remained  that  in- 
definable chasm  of  thought  and  habit  which  filial  duty 
or  politeness  could  not  bridge.  .  No  stories  of  the 
desert  were  ever  told  at  home,  though  it  was  so  easy 
to  tell  them  to  Burleigh  or  Mathewson,  those  con- 
trasts in  a  pale  fitter  of  clothes  and  a  herculean  rustler 
of  dry-goods  boxes.  But  echoes  of  the  tales  came  to 
the  father  through  his  assistants.  He  had  the  feeling 
of  some  stranger  spirit  in  his  own  likeness  moving 
there  in  the  streets  of  his  city  under  the  talisman  of 
a  consanguinity  that  was  nominal.  One  day  he  put 
an  inquiry  to  the  general  manager  concretely,  though 
in  a  way  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  asking  another's 
opinion  about  his  own  son. 

"He  has  your  gift  of  winning  men  to  him.  There 
is  no  denying  his  popularity  with  the  force,"  said  the 
general  manager,  who  was  a  diplomat. 

The  same  question  was  put  to  Peter  Mortimer. 

"We  all  love  him.  I  think  a  lot  of  people  in  the 
store  would  march  out  to  the  desert  after  him,"  said 
Mortimer,  with  real  rejoicing  in  his  candor  and  cour- 
age. Indeed,  of  late  he  had  been  developing  cheer 
as  well  as  courage,  imbibing  both,  perhaps,  from  the 
roses  in  the  vase  on  his  employer's  desk.  Jack  had 
ordered  a  fresh  bunch  put  there  every  day;  and  when 
employees  were  sick  packages  of  grapes  and  bunches 
of  flowers  came  to  them,  in  Little  Rivers  fashion, 
with  J.  W.  on  the  card,  as  if  they  had  come  from  the 
head  of  the  firm  himself. 

"Maybe  Jack  will  soften  the  old  man  a  little,"  ran 


260  OVER  THE  PASS 

a  whisper  from  basement  to  roof.  For  the  battalions 
called  him  "Jack,"  rather  than  "Mr.  Wingfield,"  just 
as  Little  Rivers  had. 

"The  boy's  good  nature  isn't  making  him  too  fa- 
miliar with  the  employees?"  was  a  second  question 
which  the  father  had  asked  both  the  general  manager 
and  Mortimer. 

"No.  That  is  the  surprising  thing — the  gift  of 
being  friendly  without  being  familiar,"  answered  the 
manager. 

"He's  got  a  kind  of  self-respect  that  induces  respect 
in  others,"  said  Peter. 

John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  was  the  proprietor  of  the  store, 
but  the  human  world  of  the  store  began  to  feel  a  kind 
of  proprietorship  in  Jack,  while  its  guardian  interest 
in  helping  him  in  his  mistakes  was  common  enough 
to  be  a  conspiracy. 

And  the  callouses  were  gone  from  his  hands.  There 
was  no  longer  a  dividing  line  between  tan  and  white 
on  his  forehead.  No  outward  symbol  of  the  desert 
clung  to  his  person  except  the  moments  of  the  far 
vision  of  distances  in  his  eyes.  Superficially,  on  the 
Avenue  he  would  have  been  taken  for  one  of  his  caste. 

But  tossing  a  cowpuncher  hat  out  of  a  window  into 
Broadway  was  easier  than  tossing  a  thing  out  of  mind. 
He  sat  up  nights  to  write  to  Mary.  Letter  after  letter 
he  poured  out  as  a  diary  of  his  experiences  in  his  new 
world,  letters  breathing  a  pupil's  hope  of  learning  and 
all  that  pupil's  sorry  vagaries.  No  answer  ever  came, 
not  even  to  the  most  appealing  ones  about  his  most 
adventurous  conflicts  with  the  dinosaur.  He  felt 
the  chagrin  of  the  army  of  unpublished  novelists  who 
Jay  their  hearts  bare  on  the  stone  slab  of  the  dissectors 


JACK  GETS  A  RAISE  261 

in  a  publisher's  office.  He  might  as  well  have  thrown 
all  he  wrote  into  the  waste-basket  so  far  as  any  result 
was  concerned;  yet  he  kept  on  writing  as  if  it  were 
his  glorious  duty  to  report  to  her  as  his  superior.  But 
he  found  a  more  responsive  correspondent  in  Jim 
Gal  way;  and  this  was  the  letter  he  received: 

"DEAR  JACK: 

"The  whole  valley  is  not  yet  sprouting  with  dates 
as  you  said  it  would  from  your  thinking  of  us.  Maybe 
we  didn't  use  the  right  seed.  Your  ranch  is  still  called 
Jack's  ranch,  and  Firio  is  doing  his  best  and  about 
the  best  I  ever  knew  in  an  Indian.  But  as  you  always 
said,  Indians  are  mostly  human,  like  the  rest  of  us, 
barring  a  sort  of  born  twist  in  their  intellect  for  which 
they  aren't  responsible.  You  see,  Jack,  a  lot  of  your 
sayings  still  live  with  us,  though  you  are  gone. 

"Well,  Firio  keeps  your  P.  D.  exercised  and  won't 
let  anybody  but  himself  ride  him.  He  says  you  will 
need  him.  For  you  can't  budge  the  stubborn  little 
cuss.  He  declares  you're  coming  back.  When  we 
tell  him  you're  worth  twenty  millions  and  he's  plumb 
full  of  primitive  foolishness  and  general  ignorance  of 
the  outside  world,  he  says,  'Si,  he  will  come  back!' 
like  some  heathen  oracle  that's  strong  on  repetition 
and  weak  on  vocabulary. 

"Of  course  you  know  about  the  new  addition  to  our 
citizenship,  John  Prather,  that  double  of  yours  that 
you  didn't  happen  to  meet.  And  I  might  mention 
that  by  this  time,  after  we've  seen  so  much  of  him,  we 
agree  with  the  Doge  that  he  doesn't  look  a  bit  like 
you.  Well,  he's  making  a  fine  ranch  across  the  road 
from  you,  but  hiring  all  his  work  done,  which  ain't 


262  OVER  THE  PASS 

exactly  according  to  Little  Rivers  custom,  as  you  will 
remember.  The  Doge  sets  a  lot  by  him,  though  I 
can't  see  how  there's  much  in  common  between  them. 
This  fellow's  not  full  of  all  that  kind  of  scholastic 
persiflage  that  you  are,  Jack.  He's  so  all-fired  practi- 
cal his  joints  would  crack  if  he  wasn't  so  oily;  and  he's 
up  to  old  man  Lefferts'  pretty  often. 

"He  goes  to  Phoenix  a  good  deal.  When  I  was  there 
the  other  day  I  heard  he  was  circulating  around  among 
the  politicians  in  his  quiet  way,  and  I  saw  him  and 
Pete  Leddy  hobnobbing  together.  I  didn't  like  that. 
But  when  I  told  the  Doge  of  it  he  said  he  guessed  there 
wasn't  much  real  hobnobbing.  The  Doge  is  certainly 
strong  for  Prather.  Another  thing  I  heard  was  that, 
after  all,  old  man  Lefferts'  two  partners  aren't  dead, 
and  Prather's  been  hunting  them  up. 

"Come  to  think  of  it,  I  didn't  tell  you  that  Pete 
Leddy  and  some  of  the  gang  have  been  back  in  town. 
Of  course  we  have  every  confidence  in  the  Doge,  he's 
been  so  fair  to  this  community.  Still,  some  of  us  can't 
help  having  our  private  suspicions,  considering  what 
a  lot  we  have  at  stake.  And  four  or  five  of  us  was 
talking  the  other  night,  when  suddenly  we  all  agreed 
how  you'd  shine  in  any  trouble,  and  if  there  was  going 
to  be  any — not  that  there  is — we  wished  you  were 
here. 

"Well,  Jack,  the  pass  hasn't  changed  and  the  sun- 
sets are  just  as  grand  as  ever  and  the  air  just  as  free. 
The  pass  won't  have  changed  and  the  sunsets  will  be 
doing  business  at  the  old  stand  when  the  antiquaries 
are  digging  up  the  remote  civilization  of  Little  Rivers 
and  putting  it  in  a  high  scale  because  they  ran  across 
a  pot  of  Mrs.  Galway's  jam  in  the  ruins — the  same 


JACK  GETS  A  RAISE  263 

hifalutin  compliment  being  your  own  when  you  were 
nursing  your  wound,  as  you  will  remember. 

"  Here's  wishing  you  luck  from  the  whole  town,  way 
out  here  in  nowhere. 

"As  ever  yours, 

"JAMES  R.  GALWAY. 

"P.  S.  Belvy  Smith  wants  to  know  if  you  won't 
write  just  one  story.  I  told  her  you  were  too  busy 
for  such  nonsense  now.  But  she  refuses  to  believe 
it.  She  says  being  busy  doesn't  matter  to  you.  She 
says  the  stories  just  pop  out.  So  I  transmit  her 
request.  J.  R.  G." 

"P.  D.  waiting!"  breathed  Jack.  "No  changing 
Firio!  He  is  like  the  pass.  I  wonder  how  Wrath  of 
God  and  Jag  Ear  are!" 

He  wrote  a  story  for  Belvy.  He  wrote  to  Firio  in 
resolute  assertion  that  he  would  never  require  the 
services  of  P.  D.  again,  when  he  knew  that  Firio, 
despite  the  protests,  would  still  keep  P.  D.  fit  for  the 
trail.  He  wrote  to  Jim  Galway  how  immersed  he 
was  in  his  new  career,  but  that  he  might  come  for  a 
while — for  a  little  while,  with  emphasis — if  ever  Jim 
wired  that  he  was  needed. 

"That  was  a  good  holiday — a  regular  week-end 
debauch  away  from  the  shop!"  he  thought,  when  the 
letters  were  finished. 

Soon  after  this  came  an  event  which,  for  the  first 
time,  gave  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  a  revelation  of  the 
side  of  his  son  that  had  won  Little  Rivers  and  the 
interest  of  the  rank  and  file  of  the  store.  Among 
Jack's  many  suggestions,  in  his  aim  to  carry  out  his 
father's  talk  about  the  creative  business  sense  the 


264  OVER  THE  PASS 

first  night  they  were  together,  had  been  one  for  a 
suburban  clubbing  delivery  system.  It  had  been 
dismissed  as  fantastic,  but  Jack  had  asked  that  it  be 
given  a  trial  and  his  father  had  consented.  Its  basis 
was  a  certain  confidence  in  human  nature.  Jack  and 
his  father  had  dined  together  the  evening  after  the 
master  of  the  push-buttons  had  gone  through  the  final 
reports  of  the  experiment. 

"Well,  Jack,  I  am  going  to  raise  your  salary  to  a 
hundred  a  week,"  the  father  announced. 

"On  the  ground  that  if  you  pay  me  more  I  might 
make  myself  worth  more?"  Jack  asked  respectfully. 

"No,  as  a  matter  of  business.  Whenever  any  man 
makes  two  dollars  for  the  store,  he  gets  one  dollar 
and  I  keep  the  other.  That  is  the  basis  of  my  suc- 
cess— others  earning  money  for  me.  Your  club 
scheme  is  a  go.  As  the  accountant  works  it  out,  it 
has  brought  a  profit  of  two  hundred  a  week." 

"Then  I  have  done  something  worth  while,  really?" 
Jack  asked,  eagerly,  but  half  sceptical  of  such  good 
fortune. 

"Yes.  You  have  created  a  value.  You  have  used 
your  powers  of  observation  and  your  brain.  That's 
the  thing  that  makes  a  few  men  employers  while  the 
multitude  remains  employees." 

"Father!    Then  I  am  not  quite  hopeless?" 

"Hopeless!  My  son  hopeless!  No,  no!  I  didn't 
expect  you  to  learn  the  business  in  a  week,  or  a  month, 
or  even  a  year.  Time!  time!" 

Nor  did  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  wish  his  son  to  develop 
too  rapidly.  Now  that  he  was  so  sure  of  beating 
threescore  and  ten,  while  retaining  the  full  possession 
of  his  faculties,  if  he  followed  the  rules  of  longevity, 


JACK  GETS  A  RAISE  265 

he  would  not  have  welcomed  a  son  who  could  spring 
into  the  saddle  at  once.  He  wanted  to  ride  alone. 
He  who  had  never  shared  his  power  with  anyone! 
He  who  had  never  admitted  anyone  into  even  a  few 
shares  of  company  partnership  in  his  concern!  Time! 
time!  The  boy  would  never  fall  heir  to  undivided 
responsibility  before  he  was  forty.  John  Wingfield, 
Sr.,  was  pleased  with  himself;  pleased  over  a  good 
sign;  and  he  could  not  deny  that  he  was  pleased  at 
the  sudden  change  in  Jack.  For  he  saw  Jack's  eyes 
sparkling  into  his  own;  sparkling  with  comradeship 
and  spontaneous  gratification.  Was  the  boy  to  be 
his  in  thought  and  purpose,  after  all?  Yes,  of  course; 
yes,  inevitably,  with  the  approach  of  maturity. 
Gradually  the  flightiness  of  his  upbringing  would 
wear  off  down  to  the  steel,  the  hard-tempered,  pater- 
nal steel.  ;| 

"You  can  scarcely  realize  what  a  fight  it  has  been 
for  me  until  you  know  the  life  I  led  out  in  Arizona, 
getting  strong  for  you  and  the  store,"  Jack  began. 

"Strong  for  me!  For  the  store!  Yes,  Jack!" 
There  was  an  emphasis  on  the  subjective  personal 
pronoun — for  him;  for  the  store! 

The  father's  face  beamed  a  serene  delight.  This 
Jack  accepted  as  the  expression  of  sympathy  and 
understanding  which  he  had  craved.  It  was  to  him 
an  inspiration  of  fellowship  that  set  the  well  of  his 
inner  being  in  overflow  and  the  force  of  his  person- 
ality, which  the  father  had  felt  uncannily  before  the 
mother's  picture,  became  something  persuasive  in 
its  radiance  rather  than  something  held  in  leash  as  a 
threatening  and  volcanic  element.  Now  he  could  talk 
as  freely  and  happily  of  the  desert  to  his  father 


266  OVER  THE  PASS 

as  to  Burleigh  and  Mathewson.  He  told  of  the  long 
rides;  of  Firio  and  Wrathfof  God.  He  made  the  tin- 
kle of  Jag  Ear's  bells  heard  in  the  silence  of  the  dining- 
room  as  it  was  heard  in  the  silences  of  the  trail.  He 
mentioned  how  he  was  afraid  to  come  back  after  he 

fwas  strong. 

/'    "Afraid?"  queried  his  father. 

"Yes.  But  I  was  coming — coming  when,  at  the 
top  of  the  pass,  I  saw  Little  Rivers  for  the  first  time." 
He  sketched  his  meeting  with  Mary  Ewold;  the 
story  of  the  town  and  the  story  of  Jasper  Ewold  as  he 
knew  it,  now  glancing  at  his  father,  now  seeming  to 
see  nothing  except  visualization  of  the  pictures  of  his 
story.  The  father,  looking  at  the  table-cloth,  at -times 
playing  with  his  coffee-spoon,  made  no  comment. 

,  "And  that  first  night  I  saw  that  Jasper  Ewold  had 
met  me  somewhere  before.  But — "  he  went  on  after 
going  back  to  the  incident  of  the  villa  in  his  child- 
hood— "that  hardly  explained.  How  could  he  remem- 
ber the  face  of  a  grown  man  from  the  face  of  a  boy? 
Jasper  Ewold !  Do  you  recall  ever  having  met  him?  He 
must  have  known  my  mother.  Perhaps  he  knew  you, 
though  why  he  should  not  have  told  me  I  don't  know. " 
"Yes,  yes— Jasper  Ewold,"  said  the  father.  "I 
knew  him  in  his  younger  days.  His  was  an  old  family 
up  in  Burbridge,  the  New  England  town  where  I 
came  from.  Too  much  college,  too  much  travel,  as 
I  remember,  characterized  Jasper  Ewold.  No  settled 
point  of  view;  and  I  judge  from  what  you  say  that  he 
must  have  run  through  his  patrimony.  One  of  the 
ups  and  downs  of  the  world,  Jack.  And  he  never 
mentioned  that  he  had  met  me?" 
"No." 


JACK  GETS  A  RAISE  267 

"Probably  a  part  of  that  desert  notion  of  freema- 
sonry in  keeping  pasts  a  secret.  But  why  did  you 
stay  on  after  you  had  recovered  from  your  wound?" 
he  asked  penetratingly,  though  he  was  looking  again 
at  the  bottom  of  his  coffee-cup. 

"For  a  reason  that  comes  to  a  man  but  once  in 
his  life!"  Jack  answered. 

Had  the  father  looked  up — it  was  a  habit  of  his  in 
listening  to  any  report  to  lower  his  eyes,  his  face  a 
mask — he  might  have  seen  Jack's  face  in  the  suprem- 
acy of  emotion,  as  it  was  when  he  had  called  up  to 
Mary  from  the  canyon  and  when  he  had  pleaded  with 
her  on  the  pass.  But  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  could  not 
mistake  the  message  of  a  voice  vibrating  with  all  the 
force  of  a  being  let  free  living  over  the  scene.  With 
the  shadows  settling  over  his  eyes,  Jack  came  to  her 
answer  and  to  the  finality  of  her  cry: 

"It's  not  in  the  blood!" 

The  only  sound  was  a  slight  tinkle  of  a  spoon  against 
the  coffee-cup.  Looking  at  his  father  he  saw  a  ner- 
vous flutter  in  his  cheeks,  his  lips  hard  set,  his  brow 
drawn  down;  and  the  rigidity  of  the  profile  was  such 
that  Jack  was  struck  by  the  shiver  of  a  thought  that 
it  must  have  been  like  his  own  as  others  said  it  was 
when  he  had  gripped  Pedro  Nogales's  arm.  But  this 
passed  quickly,  leaving,  however,  in  its  trail  an  ex- 
pression of  shock  and  displeasure. 

"So  it  was  the  girl,  that  kept  you — you  were  in 
love!"  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  exclaimed,  tensely. 

"Yes,  I  was — I  am!  You  have  it,  father,  the 
unchangeable  all  of  it!  I  face  a  wall  of  mystery. 
'It's  not  in  the  blood!'  she  said,  as  if  it  were  some  bar 
sinister.  What  could  she  have  meant?" 


268  OVER  THE  PASS 

In  the  fever  of  baffled  intensity  crying  for  light 
and  help,  he  was  sharing  the  secret  that  had  beset 
him  relentlessly  and  giving  his  father  the  supreme 
confidence  of  his  heart.  Leaning  across  the  table 
he  grasped  his  father's  hand,  which  lay  still  and  unre- 
sponsive and  singularly  cold  for  a  second.  Then 
John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  raised  his  other  hand  and  patted 
the  back  of  Jack's  hesitantly,  as  if  uncertain  how  to 
deal  with  this  latest  situation  that  had  developed 
out  of  his  son's  old  life.  Finally  he  looked  up  good- 
temperedly,  deprecatingly. 

"Well,  well,  Jack,  I  almost  forgot  that  you  are 
young.  It's  quite  a  bad  case!"  he  said. 

"But  what  did  she  mean?  Can  you  guess?  I  have 
thought  of  it  so  much  that  it  has  meant  a  thousand 
wild  things!"  Jack  persisted  desperately. 

"  Come !  come ! "  the  father  rallied  him.  "  Time,  time ! " 

He  gripped  the  hand  that  was  gripping  his  and 
swung  it  free  of  the  table  with  a  kindly  shake.  All 
the  effective  charm  of  his  personality  which  he  never 
wasted,  the  charm  that  could  develop  out  of  the  mask 
to  gain  an  end  when  the  period  of  listening  was  over, 
was  in  play. 

"She  excited  the  opposition  of  the  strength  in  you," 
he  said.  "You  ask  what  did  she  mean?  It  is  hard  to 
tell  what  a  woman  means,  but  I  judge  that  she  meant 
that  it  was  not  in  her  blood  to  marry  a  fellow  who 
went  about  fighting  duels  and  breaking  arms.  She 
would  like  a  more  peaceful  sort;  and,  yes,  anything 
that  came  into  her  mind  leaped  out  and  you  were 
mystified  by  her  strange  exclamation!" 

"Perhaps.  I  suppose  that  may  be  it.  It  was  just 
myself,  just  my  devil!"  Jack  assented  limply. 


JACK  GETS  A  RAISE  269 

"  Time !  time !    All  this  will  pass. " 

Jack  could  not  answer  that  commonplace  with  one 
of  his  own,  that  it  would  not  pass;  he  could  only  return 
the  pressure  when  his  father,  rising  and  coming  around 
the  table,  slipped  his  arm  about  the  son  in  a  demon- 
stration of  affection  which  was  like  opening  the  gate 
1  to  a  new  epoch  in  their  relations. 

"And  you  would  have  'killed  Leddy!  You  could 
have  broken  that  Mexican  in  two!  I  should  like  to 
have  seen  that!  So  would  the  ancestor!"  said  the 
father,  giving  Jack  a  hug. 

"Yes,  but,  father,  that  was  the  horror  of  it!" 

"Not  the  power  to  do  it — no!  I  mean,  Jack,  that 
in  this  world  it  is  well  to  be  strong. " 

"And  you  think  that  I  am  no  longer  a  weakling?" 
Jack  asked  strangely;  "that  I  carried  out  your  in- 
structions when  you  sent  me  away?" 

"Oh,  Jack,  you  remember  my  farewell  remark? 
It  was  made  in  irritation  and  suffering.  That  hurt 
me.  It  hurt  my  pride  and  all  that  my  work  stands 
for.  It  hurt  me  as  much  as  it  hurt  you.  But  if  it 
was  a  whip,  why,  then,  it  served  a  purpose,  as  I  wanted 
it  to." 

"Yes,  it  was  a  whip!"  said  Jack,  mechanically. 

"Then  all  ends  well— all  quits!  And,  Jack,"  he 
swung  Jack,  who  was  unresisting  but  unresponsive, 
around  facing  him,  "if  you  ever  have  any  doubts  or 
any  questions  to  ask  bring  them  to  me,  won't  you?" 

"Yes." 

"And,  Jack,  a  hundred  a  week  to-morrow!  You're 
all  right,  Jack!"  And  he  gave  Jack  a  slap  on  the 
back  as  they  left  the  dining-room. 


XXIX 

A  MEETING  ON  THE  AVENUE  TRAIL 

Light  sang  in  the  veins  and  thoughts  of  a  city. 
Light  cleansed  the  streets  of  vapors.  Light,  the 
light  of  the  sunshine  of  late  May,  made  a  far  different 
New  York  from  the  New  York  under  a  blanket  of 
March  mist  of  the  day  of  Jack's  arrival.  The  lantern 
of  the  Metropolitan  tower  was  all  blazing  gold;  Diana's 
scarf  trailed  behind  her  in  the  shimmering  abandon 
of  her  honi  soil  qui  mal  y  pense  chases  on  Olympus; 
Admiral  Farragut  grew  urbane,  sailing  on  a  smooth 
sea  with  victory  won;  General  Sherman  in  his  over- 
brightness,  guided  by  his  guardian  lady,  still  gallantly 
pursued  the  tone  of  time  in  the  direction  of  the  old 
City  Hall  and  Trinity;  and  the  marble  fa?ade  of  the 
new  library  seemed  no  less  at  home  than  under  an 
^Egean  sky.  An  ecstasy,  blinding  eyes  to  blemishes, 
set  critical  faculties  to  rejoicing  over  perfections. 
They  graciously  overlooked  the  blotch  of  red  brick 
hiding  the  body  of  St.  Patrick's  on  the  way  up  town 
in  gratitude  for  twin  spires  against  the  sky. 

Enveloping  radiance  gilded  the  sharp  lines  of  sky- 
scrapers and  swept  away  the  shadows  in  the  chasms 
between  them.  It  pointed  the  bows  of  busy  tugs 
with  sprays  of  diamonds  falling  on  the  molten  sur- 
face of  rivers  and  bays.  It  called  up  pseans  of  childish 
trebles  from  tenement  alleys;  slipped  into  the  sick- 
rooms of  private  houses,  delaying  the  advent  of  crape 
270 


A  MEETING  ON  THE  AVENUE  TRAIL    271 

on  the  door;  and  played  across  the  rows  of  beds  in 
the  public  wards  of  hospitals  in  the  primal  democ- 
racy of  the  gift  of  ozone  to  the  earth. 

The  milky  glass  roof  of  the  central  court  of  the 
Wingfield  store  acted  as  a  screen  to  the  omnipotent 
visitor,  but  he  set  unfiltered  patches  of  delight  in  the 
aisles  and  on  the  counters  near  the  walls.  Mamie 
Devore  and  Burleigh  and  Peter  Mortimer  and  many 
other  clerks  and  employees  asked  if  this  were  like  a 
desert  day  and  Jack  said  that  it  was.  He  longed  to 
be  free  of  all  roofs  and  feel  the  geniality  of  the  hearth- 
fire  of  the  planetary  system  penetrating  through  his 
coat,  his  skin,  his  flesh,  into  his  very  being.  Why 
not  close  the  store  and  make  a  holiday  for  everybody? 
he  asked  himself;  only  to  be  amazed,  on  second  thought, 
at  such  a  preposterous  suggestion  from  a  hundred- 
dollar-a-week  author  of  created  profits  in  the  busi- 
ness. He  was  almost  on  the  point  of  acting  on  another 
impulse,  which  was  that  he  and  his  father  break  away 
into  the  country  in  a  touring  car,  not  knowing  where 
they  were  going  to  stop  until  hunger  overtook  an  inn. 
This,  too,  he  dismissed  as  a  milder  form  of  the  same 
demoralizing  order  of  heresy,  bound  to  be  disturbing 
to  the  new  filial  relations  springing  from  the  night 
when  he  had  told  his  desert  story  over  the  coffee, 
which,  contrary  to  the  conventional  idea  of  an  ex- 
change of  confidences  clearing  the  mind  of  a  burden, 
had  only  provoked  more  restlessness. 

At  least,  he  would  fare  forth  for  a  while  on  the 
broad  asphalt  trail  that  begins  under  the  arch  of  the 
little  park  and  runs  to  the  entrance  of  the  great  park. 
Even  as  the  desert  has  its  spell  of  overawing  stillness 
in  an  uninhabited  land,  so  this  trail  had  its  spell  of 


272  OVER  THE  PASS 

congested  human  movement  in  the  heart  of  habita- 
tions. A  broad,  luminous  blade  lay  across  the  west 
side  of  the  street  and  left  the  other  in  shade;  and  all 
the  world  that  loved  sunshine  and  had  no  errands 
on  the  east  side  kept  to  the  west  side.  There  was 
a  communism  of  inspiration  abroad.  It  was  a  con- 
queror's triumph  just  to  be  alive  and  feel  the  pulse- 
beat  of  the  throng.  The  very  over-developed  sensi- 
tiveness of  city  nerves  became  something  to  be  thankful 
for  in  providing  the  capacity  for  keener  enjoyment 
as  compensation  for  the  capacity  for  keener  pain. 

Womankind  was  in  spring  plumage.  The  mere 
consciousness  of  the  value  of  light  to  their  costumes, 
no  less  than  the  elixir  in  their  nostrils,  gave  vivacity 
to  their  features.  As  usual,  Jack  was  seeing  them 
only  to  see  Mary.  The  creation  of  no  couturier 
could  bear  rivalry  with  the  garb  in  which  his  imagi- 
nation clothed  her.  He  found  himself  suddenly 
engrossed  in  a  particular  exhibit  of  fashion's  parade 
a  little  distance  ahead  and  going  in  the  same  direction 
as  himself,  a  young  woman  in  a  simplicity  of  gown 
to  which  her  carriage  gave  the  final  touch  of  art.  Her 
steps  had  a  long-limbed  freedom  and  lightness,  with 
which  his  own  steps  ran  in  a  rhythm  to  the  music  of 
some  past  association.  The  thrall  of  a  likeness,  which 
more  and  more  possessed  him,  made  him  hasten  to 
draw  near  for  a  more  satisfying  glimpse. 

The  young  woman  turned  her  head  to  glance  into 
a  shop-window  and  then  there  could  be  no  mistaking 
that  cheek  and  chin  and  the  peculiar  relation  of  the 
long  lashes  to  the  brow.  It  was  the  profile  whose 
imprint  had  become  indelible  on  his  mind  when  he 
had  come  round  an  elbow  of  rock  on  Galeria.  The 


A  MEETING  ON  THE  AVENUE  TRAIL    273 

Jack  of  wild,  tumultuous  pleading  who  had  parted 
from  Mary  Ewold  on  the  pass  became  a  Jack  elate 
with  the  glad,  swimming  joy  of  May  sunshine  at 
seeing  and  speaking  to  her  again. 

"Mary!  Mary!"  he  cried.  "My,  but  you've 
become  a  grand  swell!"  he  breathed  delectably,  with 
a  fuller  vision  of  her. 

"Jack!" 

There  was  a  nervous  twitching  of  her  lips.  He 
saw  her  eyes  at  first  in  a  blaze  of  surprise  and  won- 
der; then  change  to  the  baffling  sparkle,  hiding  their 
depths,  of  the  slivers  of  glass  on  the  old  barrier.  His 
smile  and  hers  in  unspoken  understanding  said  that 
two  comrades  of  another  trail  had  met  on  the  Avenue 
trail.  There  had  not  been  any  Leddy;  there  had  not 
been  any  scene  on  the  pass.  They  were  back  to  the 
conditions  of  the  protocol  he  had  established  when 
they  started  out  from  the  porch  of  the  Ewold  bun- 
galow in  the  airiest  possible  mood  to  look  at  a  parcel 
of  land. 

"And  you  also  have  become  a  grand  swell!"  she 
said.  "Did  you  expect  that  I  should  be  in  a  gray 
riding-habit?  Certainly  I  didn't  expect  to  see  you 
in  chaps  and  spurs." 

It  was  brittle  business;  but  with  a  common  resource 
in  play  they  managed  it  well.  And  there  they  were 
walking  together,  noted  by  passers-by  for  their  youth 
and  beaming  oblivion  to  everything  but  themselves. 

"How  long  have  you  been  here?"  Jack  asked. 

"Two  weeks,"  she  answered. 

Two  weeks  in  the  same  town  and  this  his  first  glimpse 
of  her!  What  a  maze  New  York  was !  What  a  desert 
waste  of  two  weeks! 


274  OVER  THE  PASS 

"Yes.  Our  decision  to  come  was  rather  abrupt," 
she  explained.  "A  sudden  call  to  travel  came  to 
father;  came  to  him  like  an  inspiration  that  he  could 
not  resist.  And  how  happily  he  has  entered  into  the 
spirit  of  the  city  again!  It  has  made  him  young." 

"And  it  has  been  quite  like  martyrdom  for  you!" 
Jack  put  in,  teasingly. 

"Terrible!    Sackcloth  and  ashes!" 

"I  see  you  are  wearing  the  sackcloth." 

She  laughed  outright,  with  a  downward  glance  at 
her  gown,  at  once  in  guilt  and  appreciation. 

"Another  whim  of  father's." 

"The  Doge  a  scapegoat  for  fashion!" 

"Not  a  scapegoat — a  partisan!  He  insisted  on 
going  to  one  of  the  best  places.  Could  I  resist?  I 
wanted  to  see  how  I  felt,  how  I  appeared. " 

"The  veritable  curiosity  of  a  Japanese  woman 
getting  her  first  foreign  gown!" 

"Thank  you!    That  is  another  excuse." 

"And  it  certainly  looks  very  well,"  Jack  declared. 

"Do  you  think  so?"  Mary  flushed  slightly.  She 
could  not  help  being  pleased.  "After  six  years,  could 
I  drop  back  into  the  old  chrysalis  naturally,  without 
awkwardness?  Did  I  still  know  how  to  wear  a  fine 
gown?" — and  the  gift  for  it,  as  anyone  could  see,  was 
born  in  her  as  surely  as  certain  gifts  were  born  in  Jack. 
"But,"  she  added,  severely,  "I  have  only  two — just 
two!  And  the  cost  of  them!  It  will  take  the  whole 
orange  crop!" 

Just  two,  when  she  ought  to  have  twenty!  When 
he  would  have  liked  to  put  all  the  Paris  models  in  the 
store  in  a  wagon  and,  himself  driving,  deliver  them  at 
her  door! 


A  MEETING  ON  THE  AVENUE  TRAIL    275 

"Having  succumbed  to  temptation,  I  enjoy  it  out 
of  sheer  respect  to  the  orange  crop,"  Mary  said;  "and 
yes,  because  I  like  beautiful  gowns;  wickedly,  truly 
like  them!  And  I  like  the  Avenue,  just  as  I  like  the 
desert." 

And  all  that  she  liked  he  could  give  her!  And  all 
that  he  could  give  she  had  stubbornly  refused! 

The  liveliness  of  her  expression,  the  many  shades 
of  meaning  that  she  could  set  capering  with  a  glance, 
were  now  as  the  personal  reflection  of  the  day  and  the 
scene.  Their  gait  was  a  sauntering  one.  They  went 
as  far  as  the  Park  and  started  back,  as  if  all  the  time 
of  the  desert  were  theirs.  They  stopped  to  look  into 
the  windows  of  shops  of  every  kind,  from  antiques 
to  millinery.  When  he  saw  a  hat  which  he-  declared, 
after  deliberate,  critical  appraisement,  would  surely 
become  her,  she  asked  boldly  if  it  were  better  than 
the  one  she  wore. 

"I  mean  an  extra  hat;  that  one  more  hat  would 
have  the  good  fortune  of  becoming  you!" 

"Almost  a  real  contribution  to  the  literature  of 
compliments!"  she  answered,  unruffled. 

He  thought,  too,  that  she  ought  to  have  a  certain 
necklace  in  a  jeweler's  window. 

"To  wear  over  my  riding-habit  or  when  I  am  dig- 
ging in  the  flower  beds?"  she  inquired. 

When  they  passed  a  display  of  luxuries  for  mascu- 
line adornment,  she  found  a  further  retort  in  suggest- 
ing that  he  ought  to  have  a  certain  giddy  fancy 
waistcoat.  He  complimented  her  on  her  taste,  bought 
the  waistcoat  and,  going  to  the  rear  of  the  shop,  re- 
turned wearing  it  with  a  momentarily  appreciated 
show  of  jaunty  swagger. 


276  OVER  THE  PASS 

"Why  be  on  the  Avenue  and  not  buy?"  he  queried, 
enthusing  with  a  new  idea. 

Jim  Galway  should  have  a  cowpuncher  hat  as  a 
present.  The  style  of  band  was  a  subject  of  discus- 
sion calling  on  their  discriminative  views  of  Jim's  per- 
sonal tastes.  This  led  to  thoughts  of  others  in  Little 
Rivers  who  would  appreciate  gifts,  and  to  the  purchase 
of  toys  for  the  children,  a  positive  revel.  When  they 
were  through  it  was  well  past  noon  and  they  were  in 
the  region  of  the  restaurants.  The  sun  in  majestic 
altitude  swept  the  breadth  of  the  Avenue. 

"Shall  we  lunch— yes,  and  in  the  Best  Swell  Place ?'v 
he  asked,  as  if  it  were  a  matter-of-course  part  of  the 
programme,  while  inwardly  he  was  stirred  with  the  fear 
of  her  refusal.  He  felt  that  any  minute  she  might 
leave  him,  with  no  alternative  but  another  farewell. 
She  hesitated  a  moment  seriously,  then  accepted 
blithely  and  naturally. 

"Yes,  the  Best  Swell  Place— let's!  Who  isn't 
entitled  to  the  Best  Swell  Place  occasionally?" 

After  an  argument  in  comparison  of  famous  names, 
they  were  convinced  that  they  had  really  chosen  the 
Best  Swell  Place  by  the  fact  of  a  vacant  table  at  a 
window  looking  out  over  a  box  hedge.  Jack  told  the 
waiter  that  the  assemblage  was  not  an  autocracy,  but 
a  parliament  which,  with  a  full  quorum  present,  would 
enjoy  in  discursive  appreciation  selections  from  the 
broad  range  of  a  bill  of  fare. 

A  luncheon  for  two  narrows  a  walk  on  the  Avenue, 
where  you  are  part  of  a  crowd,  into  restricted  inti- 
macy. He  was  feeling  the  intoxication  of  her  inscru- 
tability, catching  gleams  of  the  wealth  that  lay  beyond 
it,  across  the  limited  breadth  of  a  table-cloth.  He 


A  MEETING  ON  THE  AVENUE  TRAIL    277 

forgot  about  the  unspoken  conditions  in  a  sally  which 
was  like  putting  his  hand  on  top  of  the  barrier  for  an 
impetuous  leap  across. 

"I  wrote  you  stacks  of  letters,"  he  said,  "and  you 
never  sent  me  one  little  line;  not  even  'Yours  received 
and  contents  noted!'" 

In  a  flash  all  intimacy  vanished.  She  might  have 
been  at  the  other  end  of  the  dining-room  in  somebody 
else's  party  nodding  to  him  as  to  an  acquaintance.  Her 
answer  was  delayed  about  as  long  as  it  takes  to  lift 
an  arrow  from  a  quiver  and  notch  it  in  a  bowstring. 

"A  novel  may  be  very  interesting,  but  that  does 
not  mean  that  I  write  to  the  author!" 

He  imagined  her  going  through  the  meal  in  polite 
silence  or  in  measured  commonplaces,  turning  the 
happy  parliament  into  a  frigid  Gothic  ceremony. 
Why  had  he  not  kept  in  mind  that  sufficient  to  the 
hour  is  the  pleasure  of  it?  Famished  for  her  com- 
panionship, a  foolhardy  impulse  of  temptation  had 
risked  its  loss.  The  waiter  set  something  before 
them  and  softly  withdrew.  Jack  signaled  the  un- 
spoken humility  of  being  a  disciplined  soldier  at  atten- 
tion on  his  side  of  the  barrier  and  Mary  signaled  a 
trifle  superior  but  good-natured  acceptance  of  his 
apology  and  promise  of  better  conduct. 

They  were  back  to  the  truce  of  nonsense,  apostro- 
phizing the  cooking  of  the  Best  Swell  Place,  setting 
exclamations  to  their  glimpses  of  people  passing  in 
the  street.  For  they  had  never  wanted  for  words 
when  talking  across  the  barrier;  there  was  paucity 
of  conversation  only  when  he  threatened  an  invasion. 

While  a  New  Yorker  meeting  a  former  New  Yorker 
on  the  desert  might  have  little  to  tell  not  already 


278  OVER  THE  PASS 

chronicled  in  the  press,  a  Little  Riversite  meeting  a 
former  Little  Riversite  in  New  York  had  a  family 
budget  of  news.  How  high  were  Jack's  hedges? 
How  were  the  Doge's  date-trees?  How  was  this  and 
that  person  coming  on?  Listening  to  all  the  details, 
Jack  felt  homesickness  creeping  over  him,  and  he 
clung  fondly  to  every  one  of  the  swiftly-passing  mo- 
ments. By  no  reference  and  by  no  inference  had 
she  suggested  that  there  was  ever  any  likelihood  of 
his  meeting  or  hearing  from  her  again.  A  thread  of 
old  relations  had  been  spun  only  to  be  snapped. 
She  was,  indeed,  as  a  visitation  developed  out  of  the 
sunshine  of  the  Avenue,  into  which  she  would  dissolve. 

"I  was  to  meet  father  at  a  bookstore  at  three," 
she  said,  finally,  as  she  rose. 

"Inevitably  he  would  be  there  or  in  a  gallery," 
said  Jack. 

"He  has  done  the  galleries.  This  is  the  day  for 
buying  books — still  more  books!  I  suppose  he  is 
spending  the  orange  crop  again.  If  you  keep  on 
spending  the  same  orange  crop,  just  where  do  you 
arrive  in  the  maze  of  finance?" 

"I  should  not  like  to  say  without  consulting  the 
head  book-keeper  or,  at  least,  Peter  Mortimer!" 

They  were  coming  out  of  the  door  of  the  Best  Swell 
Place,  now.  A  word  and  she  would  be  going  in  one 
direction  and  he  in  another.  Plow  easily  she  might 
speak  that  word,  with  an  electric  and  final  glance  of 
good- will ! 

"But  I  must  say  howdy  do  to  the  Doge!"  he  urged. 
"I  should  like  to  see  him  buying  books.  What  a 
prodigal  debauch  of  learning!  I  cannot  miss  that!" 

"It  is  not  far,"  she  said,  prolonging  Paradise  for  him. 


A  MEETING  ON  THE  AVENUE  TRAIL    279 

A  few  blocks  below  Forty-second  Street  they  turned 
into  a  cross  street  which  was  the  same  that  led  to  the 
Wingfield  house;  and  halfway  to  Madison  Avenue 
they  entered  a  bookstore.  The  light  from  low  win- 
dows spreading  across  the  counters  blended  with  the 
light  from  high  windows  at  the  back,  and  here,  on  a 
platform  at  the  head  of  the  stairs,  before  a  big  table 
sat  the  Doge,  in  the  majesty  of  a  great  patron  of 
literature,  with  a  clerk  standing  by  in  deftly-urging 
attentiveness.  Mary  and  Jack  paused  at  the  foot 
of  the  stairs  watching  him.  Gently  he  was  fingering 
an  old  octavo;  fingering  it  as  one  would  who  was 
between  the  hyperionic  desire  of  possession  and  a 
fear  that  a  bank  account  owed  its  solvency  to  keeping 
the  amounts  of  deposits  somewhere  in  proportion 
to  the  amount  of  withdrawals. 

"No,  sir!  No  more,  you  tempter!"  he  declared. 
"No  more,  you  unctuous  ambassador  from  the  court 
of  Gutenberg!  Why,  this  one  would  take  enough 
alfalfa  at  the  present  price  a  ton  to  bury  your  store 
under  a  haycock  as  high  as  the  Roman  Pantheon!" 

The  Doge  rose  and  picked  up  his  broad-brimmed 
hat,  prepared  to  fly  from  danger.  He  would  not 
expose  himself  a  moment  longer  to  the  wiles  of  that 
clerk. 

"I'll  wait  for  my  daughter  down  there  in  the  safe 
and  economical  environs  of  the  popular  novels  fresh 
from  the  press!"  he  said. 

Turning  to  descend  the  stairs  he  saw  the  waiting 
pair.  He  stopped  stock  still  and  threw  up  his  hand 
in  a  gesture  of  astonishment.  His  glance  hovered 
back  and  forth  between  Jack's  face  and  Mary's,  and 
then  met  Jack's  look  with  something  of  the  same 


280  OVER  THE  PASS 

challenge  and  confidence  of  his  farewell  on  the  road 
out  of  Little  Rivers,  and  in  an  outburst  of  genial 
raillery  he  began  the  conversation  where  he  had  left 
off  with  the  final  call  of  his  personal  good  wishes  and 
his  salutations  to  certain  landmarks  of  New  York. 

"Well,  well,  Sir  Chaps!  I  saw  Sorolla  in  his  nev 
style;  very  different  from  the  academics  of  the  young 
Sorolla.  He  has  found  his  mission  and  let  himself 
go.  No  wonder  people  flocked  to  his  exhibitions  on 
misty  days!  The  trouble  with  our  artists  is  that  they 
are  afraid  to  let  themselves  go,  afraid  to  be  popular. 
They  think  technique  is  the  thing,  when  it  is  only 
the  tool.  Why,  confound  it  all!  all  the  great  masters 
were  popular  in  their  day — Venetian,  Florentine, 
Flemish!  Confound  it,  yes!  And  not  one  Velas- 
quez"— evidently  he  was  talking  partly  to  get  his 
bearings  after  his  shock  at  seeing  Jack — "no,  not  one 
Velasquez  in  the  Metropolitan!  I  go  home  without 
seeing  a  Velasquez.  They  have  the  Catherine  Loril- 
lard  Wolfe  collection,  thousands  of  square  yards  of 
it,  and  yes,  cheer  up!  Thank  heaven,  they  have 
some  great  Americans,  Inness  and  Martin  and  Homer 
and  our  exile  Whistler,  who  annexed  Japan,  and  our 
Sargent,  born  in  Florence.  And  I  did  see  the  Metro- 
politan tower.  I  take  off  my  hat,  my  broad-brimmed 
hat,  wishing  that  it  were  as  big  as  a  carter's  umbrella, 
to  that  tower.  I  hate  to  think  it  an  accident  of  chaos 
like  the  Grand  Canyon.  I  rather  like  to  think  of  it 
as  majestic  promise." 

The  Doge  had  talked  so  fast  that  he  was  almost 
out  of  breath.  He  was  ready  to  yield  the  floor  to 
Jack. 

"I  kissed  my  hand  to  Diana  for  you!"  said  Jack. 


A  MEETING  ON  THE  AVENUE  TRAIL    281 

"And  what  do  you  think?  The  lady  in  answer  shook 
out  her  scarf  and  something  white  and  small  flut- 
tered down.  I  picked  it  up.  It  was  a  note." 

"Did  you  open  that  note?"  asked  the  Doge  in 
haughty  suspicion. 

"Naturally." 

"Wasn't  it  marked  personal  for  me?" — this  in 
fine  simulation  of  indignation. 

"Without  address!" 

"I  am  chagrined  and  surprised  at  Diana,"  said  the 
Doge  ruefully.  "It's  the  effect  of  city  association. 
As  a  matter  of  course,  she  ought  to  have  given  it  to 
Mercury,  or  at  least  to  one  of  the  Centaurs,  consider- 
ing all  the  horseshows  that  have  been  held  under  her 
skipping  toes!  Well,  what  did  she  say?  Being  a 
woman  of  action  she  was  brief.  What  did  she  say?" 

"It  was  in  the  nature  of  a  general  personal  com- 
plaint. Her  costume  is  in  need  of  repair;  it  is  flaking 
disgracefully.  She  said  that  if  you  had  not  forsaken 
your  love  of  the  plastic  for  love  of  the  graphic  arts 
you  would  long  ago  have  stolen  a  little  gold  off  the 
Eternal  Painter's  palette,  just  to  clothe  her  decently 
for  the  sake  of  her  own  self-respect — the  town  having 
set  her  so  high  that  its  sense  of  propriety  was  quite 
safe." 

"I  stand  convicted  of  neglect,"  said  the  Doge, 
coming  down  to  the  floor  of  the  store.  "I  will  shoot 
her  a  bundle  of  gold  leaf  from  the  top  of  the  pass  on 
a  ray  of  evening  sunshine." 

There,  he  gave  Jack  a  pat  on  the  shoulder;  a  hasty, 
playful,  almost  affectionate  demonstration,  and  broke 
off  with  a  shout  of: 

"Persiflage,  sir,  persiflage!" 


282  OVER  THE  PASS 

"It  is  manna  to  me!"  declared  Jack,  in  the  fulness 
and  sweetness  of  the  sensation  of  the  atmosphere  of 
Little  Rivers  reproduced  in  New  York. 

"And  not  a  Velasquez  in  the  Metropolitan!"  mused 
the  Doge,  bustling  along  the  aisle  hurriedly.  "Well, 
Mary,  we  have  errands  to  do.  There  is  no  time  to 
spare. " 

They  were  at  the  door,  Jack  in  wistful  insistence, 
hungry  for  their  companionship,  and  the  Doge  and 
Mary  in  common  hesitancy  for  a  phrase  before  part- 
ing from  him.  He  was  ahead  of  the  phrase. 

"But  there  is  a  Velasquez,  one  of  the  greatest  of 
Velasquezes,  just  a  few  steps  from  here!  It  would 
take  only  a  minute  to  see  it." 

"A  Velasquez  a  few  steps  from  here!"  cried  the 
Doge.  "Where?  Be  exact,  before  I  let  my  hopes 
rise  too  high." 

"The  subject  is  an  ancestor  of  mine.  My  father 
has  it." 

Jack  had  looked  in  the  direction  of  the  Wingfield 
house  on  the  Madison  Avenue  corner  as  he  spoke, 
and  the  Doge  had  followed  his  glance.  The  eager- 
ness passed  from  the  Doge's  face,  but  not  its  intensity. 
That  was  transmuted  into  something  staring  and  hard. 

"A  very  great  Velasquez!"  Jack  repeated. 

"My  amour  propre!"  the  Doge  said,  in  whispered 
abstraction,  using  the  French  which  so  exactly  ex- 
presses the  Tightness  of  an  inner  feeling  that  will  not 
let  one  do  a  thing  however  much  he  may  wish  to. 
Then  a  wave  of  confusion  passed  over  his  face,  evi- 
dently at  the  echo  of  his  thoughts  in  the  form  of  words 
come  unwittingly  from  his  lips.  He  tried  to  retrieve 
his  exclamation  in  an  effort  at  the  forensic:  "The 


A  MEETING  ON  THE  AVENUE  TRAIL    283 

amour  propre  of  any  American  is  hurt  by  the  thought 
that  he  must  go  to  a  private  gallery  to  see  a  Velas- 
auez  in  the  greatest  city  of  the  land!" 

But  it  was  a  lame  explanation.  Clearly,  some  old 
antipathy  had  been  aroused  in  Jasper  Ewold;  and  it 
made  him  hesitate  to  enter  the  big  red  brick  house 
on  the  corner. 

"And  we  have  a  wonderful  Sargent,  too,  a  Sargent 
of  my  mother!"  Jack  proceeded. 

"Yes,  yes!"  said  the  Doge,  and  eagerness  returned; 
a  strange,  moving  eagerness  that  seemed  to  come 
from  the  same  depths  as  the  exclamation  that  had 
arrested  his  acceptance  of  the  invitation  at  the  out- 
set. It  held  the  monosyllables  like  drops  of  water 
trembling  before  they  fell. 

"I  should  like  you  to  see  them  both,"  said  Jack. 

"Yes,"  said  the  Doge,  the  word  an  echo  rather 
than  consent. 

"There  is  no  one  at  home  at  this  hour;  you  will 
have  all  the  time  you  can  spare  for  the  pictures." 

In  the  ascendency  of  his  ardor  to  retain  the  joy 
of  their  company  and  in  the  perplexity  of  mystery 
injected  afresh  into  his  relations  with  Mary,  Jack 
was  hardly  conscious  that  his  urging  was  only  another 
way  of  saying  that  his  father  was  absent.  And  Mary 
had  not  thrown  her  influence  either  for  or  against 
going.  She  was  watching  her  father,  curiously  and 
penetratingly,  as  if  trying  to  understand  the  source 
of  the  emotion  that  he  was  seeking  to  control. 

"Why,  in  that  case,"  exclaimed  the  Doge,  "why, 
you  see,"  he  went  on  to  explain,  "we  desert  folk, 
though  we  are  used  to  galleries,  are  a  little  diffident 
about  meeting  people  who  live  in  big  mansions.  I 


284  OVER  THE  PASS 

mean,  people  who  have  not  had  the  desert  training 
that  you  have  had,  Sir  Chaps.  If  it  is  only  a  matter 
of  looking  at  a  picture  without  any  social  responsi- 
bilities, and  that  picture  a  Velasquez,  why,  we  must 
take  the  time,  mustn't  we,  Mary?" 

"Yes,"  Mary  assented. 

With  Mary  on  one  side  of  him  and  Jack  on  the 
other,  the  Doge  was  walking  heavily  and  slowly. 

"At  what  period  of  Velasquez's  career?"  he  asked, 
vacantly. 

"When  he  was  young  and  the  subject  was  middle- 
aged,  a  Northerner,  with  fair  hair  and  lean  muscles 
under  a  skin  bronzed  by  the  tropics,  and  the  un- 
quenchable fire  of  youth  in  his  eyes." 

"That  ought  to  be  a  good  Velasquez, "  said  the  Doge. 

At  the  bottom  step  of  the  flight  up  to  the  entrance 
to  the  house  he  hesitated.  He  appeared  to  be  very 
old  and  very  tired.  His  face  had  gone  quite  pale. 
The  lids  hung  heavily  over  his  eyes.  Jack  dropped 
back  in  alarm  to  assist  him;  but  his  color  quickly 
returned  and  the  old  challenge  was  in  his  glance  as  it 
met  Jack's. 

"Now  for  your  Velasquez!"  he  exclaimed,  with 
calm  vigor. 

Once  in  the  hall,  Jack  stood  to  one  side  of  the  door 
of  the  drawing-room  to  let  the  Doge  enter  first.  As 
the  old  man  crossed  the  threshold  his  hands  were 
clasped  behind  him;  his  shoulders  had  fallen  together, 
not  in  weariness  now,  but  in  a  kind  of  dazed,  studious 
expectancy;  and  he  faced  the  "Portrait  of  a  Lady." 

"This  is  the  Sargent,"  he  said  slowly,  his  lips  barely 
opening  in  mechanical  and  absent  comment.  "A 
good  Sargent!" 


A  MEETING  ON  THE  AVENUE  TRAIL    285 

He  was  as  still  as  the  picture  in  his  bowed  and 
earnest  gaze  into  her  eyes,  except  for  an  occasional 
nervous  movement  of  the  fingers.  All  the  surround- 
ings seemed  to  melt  into  a  neutral  background  for  the 
two;  there  was  nothing  else  in  the  room  but  the  scholar 
in  his  age  and  the  "Portrait  of  a  Lady"  in  her  youth. 
Jack  saw  the  Doge's  face,  its  many  lines  expressive 
as  through  a  mist  of  time,  its  hills  and  valleys  in  the 
sun  and  the  shadow  of  emotions  as  variable  as  the 
mother's  in  life,  speaking  personal  resentment  and 
wrong,  admiration  and  tenderness,  grievous  inquiry 
and  philosophy,  while  the  only  answer  was  the  radiant, 
"I  give!  I  give!"  Finally,  the  Doge  tightened  the 
clasp  of  his  hands,  with  a  quiver  of  his  frame,  as  he 
turned  toward  Jack. 

"Yes,  a  really  great  Sargent — a  Sargent  of  supreme 
inspiration!"  he  said.  "Now  for  your  Velasquez!" 

Before  the  portrait  of  the  first  John  Wingfield, 
Jasper  Ewold's  head  and  shoulders  recovered  their 
sturdiness  of  outline  and  his  features  lighted  with  the 
veritable  touch  of  the  brush  of  genius  itself.  He  was 
the  connoisseur  who  understands,  whose  joy  of  pos- 
session is  in  the  very  tingling  depths  of  born  instinct, 
rich  with  training  and  ripened  by  time.  It  was  su- 
perior to  any  bought  title  of  ownership.  In  the  pres- 
ence of  a  supreme  standard,  every  shade  of  discrimi- 
native criticism  and  appraisal  became  threads  woven 
into  a  fabric  of  rapture. 

"Mary,"  he  said,  his  voice  having  the  mellowness 
of  age  in  its  deep  appreciation,  "Mary,  wherever  you 
saw  this — skied  or  put  in  a  corner  among  a  thousand 
other  pictures,  in  a  warehouse,  a  Quaker  meeting- 
house, anywhere,  whatever  its  surroundings — should 


286  OVER  THE  PASS 

you  feel  its  compelling  power?  Should  you  pause, 
incapable  of  analysis,  in  a  spell  of  tribute?" 

"Yes,  I  don't  think  I  am  quite  so  insensible  as  net 
to  realize  the  greatness  of  this  portrait,  or  that  of  the 
Sargent,  either,"  she  answered. 

"Good!  I  am  glad,  Mary,  very  glad.  You  do 
me  credit!" 

Now  he  turned  from  the  artist  to  the  subject.  He 
divined  the  kind  of  man  the  first  John  Wingfield 
was;  divined  it  almost  as  written  in  the  chronicle 
which  Jack  kept  in  his  room  in  hallowed  fraternity. 
Only  he  bore  hard  on  the  unremitting,  callous,  im- 
pulsive aggressiveness  of  a  fierce  past  age,  with  its 
survival  of  the  fittest  swordsmen  and  buccaneers, 
which  had  no  heroes  for  him  except  the  painters,  poets, 
and  thinkers  it  gave  to  posterity. 

"Fire-eating  old  devil!  And  the  best  thing  he 
ever  did,  the  best  luck  he  ever  had,  was  attracting 
the  attention  of  a  young  artist.  It's  immortality 
just  to  be  painted  by  Velasquez;  the  only  immortality 
many  a  famous  man  of  the  time  will  ever  know!" 

He  looked  away  from  the  picture  to  Jack's  face 
keenly  and  back  at  the  picture  and  back  at  Jack  and 
back  at  the  picture  once  more. 

"Yes,  yes!"  he  mused,  corroboratively;  and  Jack 
realized  that  at  the  same  time  Mary  had  been  making 
the  same  comparison. 

"Very  like!"  she  said,  with  that  impersonal  exact- 
ness which  to  him  was  always  the  most  exasperating 
of  her  phases. 

Then  the  Doge  returned  to  the  Sargent.  He  was 
standing  nearer  the  picture,  but  in  the  same  position 
as  before,  while  Jack  and  Mary  waited  silently  on 


A  MEETING  ON  THE  AVENUE  TRAIL    287 

his  pleasure;  and  all  three  were  as  motionless  as  the 
furniture,  had  it  not  been  for  the  nervous  twitching 
of  the  Doge's  fingers.  He  seemed  unconscious  of 
the  passing  of  time;  a  man  in  a  maze  of  absorption 
with  his  thoughts.  Jack  was  strangely  affected.  His 
brain  was  marking  time  at  the  double-quick  of  fruit- 
less energy.  He  felt  the  atmosphere  of  the  room 
surcharged  with  the  hostility  of  the  unknown.  He 
was  gathering  a  multitude  of  impressions  which  only 
contributed  more  chaos  to  chaos.  His  sensibilities 
abnormally  alive  to  every  sound,  he  heard  the  outside 
door  opened  with  a  latch-key;  he  heard  steps  in  the  hall, 
and  saw  his  father's  figure  in  the  doorway  of  the  draw- 
ing-room. 

John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  appeared  with  a  smile  that 
was  gone  in  a  flash.  His  face  went  stark  and  gray 
as  stone  under  a  frown  from  the  Doge  to  Jack;  and 
with  an  exclamation  of  the  half -articulate  "Oh  I"  of 
confusion,  he  withdrew. 

Jack  looked  around  to  see  the  Doge  half  turned 
in  the  direction  of  the  door,  gripping  the  back  of  a 
chair  to  steady  himself,  while  Mary  was  regarding 
this  sudden  change  in  him  jn  answer  to  the  stricken 
change  in  the  intruder  with  some  of  Jack's  own  paraly- 
sis of  wonder.  The  Doge  was  the  first  to  speak.  He 
fairly  rocked  the  chair  as  he  jerked  his  hand  free  of 
its  support,  while  he  shook  with  a  palsy  which  was 
not  that  of  fear,  for  there  was  raging  color  in  his  cheeks. 
The  physical  power  of  his  great  figure  was  revealed. 
For  the  first  time  Jack  was  able  to  think  of  him  as 
capable  of  towering  militancy.  His  anger  gradually 
yielded  to  the  pressure  of  will  and  the  situation.  At 
length  he  said  faintly,  with  a  kind  of  abyssmal  courtesy: 


288  OVER  THE  PASS 

"Thank  you,  Sir  Chaps!  Now  I  shall  not  go  back 
to  the  desert  without  having  seen  a  Velasquez.  Thank 
you!  And  we  must  be  going." 

Jack  had  an  impulse,  worthy  of  the  tempestuous 
buccaneer  of  the  picture,  to  call  to  his  father  to  come 
down;  and  then  to  bar  the  front  door  until  his  burn- 
ing questions  were  heard.  The  still  light  in  Mary's  eyes 
would  have  checked  him,  if  not  his  own  proper  second 
thought  and  the  fear  of  precipitating  an  ungovern- 
able crisis.  There  had  been  shadows,  real  shadows, 
he  was  thinking  wildly;  they  were  not  born  of  desert 
imaginings;  and  out  of  the  quandary  of  his  anguish 
came  only  the  desire  not  to  part  from  the  Doge  and 
Mary  in  this  fashion!  No,  not  until  in  some  way 
equilibrium  of  mind  was  restored. 

Though  he  knew  that  they  did  not  expect  or  want 
his  company,  he  went  out  into  the  street  with  them. 
He  would  go  as  far  as  their  hotel,  he  remarked,  in  the 
bravery  of  simulated  ease.  The  three  were  walking 
in  the  same  relative  positions  that  they  had  before, 
with  the  Doge's  bulk  hiding  Mary  from  Jack's  sight. 
The  Doge  set  a  rapid  pace,  as  if  under  the  impetus  of 
a  desire  to  escape  from  the  neighborhood  of  the  Wing- 
field  house. 

"Well,  Sir  Chaps,"  he  said,  after  a  while,  "it  will 
be  a  long  time  before  the  provincials  come  to  New 
York  again.  Why,  in  this  New  York  you  can  spend 
a  patrimony  in  two  weeks" — this  with  an  affected 
amusement  at  his  own  extravagance — "and  I've 
pretty  nearly  done  it.  So  we  fly  from  temptation. 
Yes,  Mary,  we  will  take  the  morning  train. " 

"The  morning  train!"  Mary  exclaimed;  and  her 
surprise  left  no  doubt  that  her  father's  decision  was 


A  MEETING  ON  THE  AVENUE  TRAIL    289 

new  to  her.  Was  it  due  to  an  exchange  of  glances 
between  a  stark  face  and  a  face  crimson  with  indig- 
nation which  Jack  had  already  connected  with  the 
working  out  of  his  own  destiny? 

"Yes,  that  is  better  than  spending  our  orange  crop 
again!"  she  hastened  to  add,  with  reassuring  humor. 
"I'm  fairly  homesick  for  our  oasis." 

"We've  had  our  fill  of  the  big  city,"  said  the  Doge, 
feelingly,  "and  we  are  away  to  our  little  city  of  peace 
where  we  turned  our  pasts  under  with  the  first  furrows 
in  the  virgin  soil." 

Then  silence.  The  truce  of  nonsense  was  dead. 
Persiflage  was  dead.  Jack  was  as  a  mute  stranger 
keeping  at  their  side  unasked,  while  the  only  glimpse 
he  had  of  Mary  was  the  edge  of  her  hat  and  her  finger- 
tips on  her  father's  sleeve.  Silence,  which  he  felt 
was  as  hard  for  them  as  for  him,  lasted  until  they 
were  at  the  entrance  to  the  quiet  little  hotel  on  a 
cross-town  street  where  the  E  wolds  were  staying; 
and  having  the  first  glimpse  of  Mary's  eyes  since 
they  had  started,  he  found  nothing  fathomable  in 
them  except  unmistakable  relief  that  the  walk  was 
over. 

"Thank  you  for  showing  me  the  Velasquez,"  said 
the  Doge. 

"Thank  you,  Jack,"  Mary  added. 

Both  spoke  in  a  manner  that  signaled  to  him  the 
end  of  all  things,  but  an  end  which  he  could  not  accept. 

"I — I — oh,   there  are  a  thousand  questions  I — 
he  broke  out,  desperately. 

The  muscles  of  his  face  tightened.  Unconsciously 
he  had  leaned  forward  toward  the  Doge  in  his  inten- 
sity, and  his  attitude  had  become  that  of  the  Wing- 


290  OVER  THE  PASS 

field  of  the  portrait.  A  lower  note  of  command  ran 
through  the  misery  of  his  tone. 

Jasper  Ewold  stared  at  him  in  a  second  of  scrutiny, 
at  once  burningly  analytic  and  reflective.  Then  he 
flushed  as  he  had  at  sight  of  the  figure  in  the  drawing- 
room  doorway.  His  look  plainly  said:  "How  much 
longer  do  you  mean  to  harass  me?"  as  if  Jack's  features 
were  now  no  less  the  image  of  a  hard  and  bitter  mem- 
ory than  those  of  John  Wingfield,  Sr.  Jack  drew, 
back  hurt  and  dumb,  in  face  of  this  anger  turned  on 
himself.  At  length,  the  Doge  mustered  his  rallying 
smile,  which  was  that  of  a  man  who  carries  into  his 
declining  years  a  burden  of  disappointments  which  he 
fears  may,  in  his  bad  moments,  get  the  better  of  his 
personal  system  of  philosophy. 

"Come,  Mary!"  he  said,  drawing  his  arm  through 
hers.  He  became,  in  an  evident  effort,  a  grand,  old- 
fashioned  gentleman,  making  a  bow  of  farewell. 
"Come,  Mary,  it's  an  early  train  and  we  have  our 
packing  yet  to  do." 

This  time  it  was,  indeed,  dismissal;  such  a  dismissal 
with  polite  urgency  as  a  venerable  cabinet  minister 
might  give  an  importunate  caller  who  is  slow  to  go. 
He  and  Mary  started  into  the  hotel.  But  he  halted 
in  the  doorway  to  say  over  his  shoulder,  with  some- 
thing of  his  old-time  cheer,  which  had  the  same  element 
of  pity  as  his  leave-taking  on  the  trail  outside  of  Little 
Rivers: 

"Luck,  Sir  Chaps!" 

"Luck!"  Mary  called  in  the  same  strained  tone 
that  she  had  called  to  Jack  when  he  went  over  the 
pass  on  his  way  to  New  York,  the  tone  that  was  like 
the  click  of  a  key  in  the  lock  of  a  gate. 


XXX 

WITH  THE  PHANTOMS 

As  Jack  left  the  hotel  entrance  he  was  walking  in 
the  treadmill  mechanics  of  a  prisoner  pacing  a  cell, 
without  note  of  his  surroundings,  except  of  dim,  mov- 
ing figures  with  which  he  must  avoid  collision.  The 
phantoms  of  his  boyhood,  bulky  and  stiflingly  near, 
had  a  monstrous  reality,  yet  the  ghostly  intangibility 
that  mocked  his  sword-thrusts  of  tortured  inquiry. 
At  length  his  distraction  centered  on  the  fact  that  he 
and  his  father  were  to  dine  alone  that  evening. 

They  dined  alone  regularly  every  Wednesday,  when 
Jack  made  a  report  of  his  progress  and  received  a 
lesson  in  business.  It  was  at  the  last  council  of  this 
kind  that  John  Wingfield,  ST.,  had  bidden  his  son  to 
bring  all  questions  and  doubts  to  him.  Now  Jack 
hailed  the  weekly  function  as  having  all  the  promise 
of  relief  of  a  surgeon's  knife.  Fully  and  candidly  he 
would  unburden  himself  of  every  question  beating 
in  his  brain  and  every  doubt  assailing  his  spirit. 

By  the  time  that  he  was  mounting  the  steps  of  the 
house  his  growing  impatience  could  no  longer  bear 
even  the  delay  of  waiting  on  dinner.  When  he  entered 
the  hall  he  was  the  driven  creature  of  an  impelling 
desire  that  must  be  satisfied  immediately. 

"Will  you  ask  my  father  if  he  will  see  me  at  once?" 
he  said  to  the  butler. 

291 


292  OVER  THE  PASS 

"Mr.  Wingfield  left  word  that  he  had  to  go  into 
the  country  for  the  night,"  answered  the  butler.  "1 
am  sorry,  sir,"  he  added  confusedly,  in  view  of  the 
blank  disappointment  with  which  the  information 
was  received. 

In  dreary  state  Jack  dined  by  himself  in  the  big 
dining-room,  leaving  the  food  almost  untouched. 
At  intervals  he  was  roused  to  a  sense  of  his  presence 
at  table  by  the  servant's  question  if  he  should  bring 
another  course.  Without  waiting  for  the  last  one, 
he  went  downstairs  to  the  drawing-room,  and  stand- 
ing near  the  "Portrait  of  a  Lady,"  again  poured  out 
his  questions,  receiving  the  old  answer  of  "I  give! 
I  give!"  which  meant,  he  knew,  that  she  had  given 
all  of  herself  to  him.  Saying  after  saying  of  hers 
raced  through  his  mind  without  throwing  light  on 
the  mystery,  which  had  the  uncanniness  of  a  con- 
spiracy against  him. 

And  after  his  mother,  Mary  had  influenced  him. 
more  than  any  other  person.  She  had  brought  life 
to  the  seeds  which  his  mother  had  planted  in  his  nature. 
That  new  life  could  not  die,  but  without  her  it  could 
not  flourish.  Her  cry  of  "It's  not  in  the  blood!" 
again  came  echoing  to  his  ears.  What  had  she  meant? 
The  question  sent  him  to  the  E wolds'  hotel;  it  sent 
this  note  up  to  her  room: 

"MARY: 

"In  behalf  of  old  desert  comradeship,  if  I  were  in 
trouble  wouldn't  you  help  me  all  you  could?  If  I 
were  in  darkness  and  you  could  give  me  light,  would 
you  refuse?  Won't  you  see  me  for  a  few  moments, 
if  I  promise  to  keep  to  my  side  of  the  barrier  which 


WITH  THE  PHANTOMS  293 

you  have  raised  between  us?    I  will  wait  here  in  the 
lobby  a  long  time,  hoping  that  you  will. 

"JACK." 

"All  the  light  I  have  to  give.  I  also  am  in  dark- 
ness," came  the  answer  in  a  nervous,  impulsive  hand 
across  a  sheet  of  paper;  and  soon  Mary  herself  appeared 
from  the  elevator,  not  in  the  fashion  of  the  Avenue, 
but  in  simple  gray  coat  and  skirt,  such  as  she  wore 
at  home.  She  greeted  him  in  a  startled,  half-fearful 
manner,  as  if  her  presence  were  due  to  the  impulsion 
of  duty  rather  than  choice. 

"Shall  we  walk?"  she  asked,  turning  toward  the 
door  in  the  welcome  of  movement  as  a  steadying 
influence  in  her  evident  emotion. 

There  they  were  in  the  old  rhythm  of  step  of  Little 
Rivers  companionship  on  a  cross-town  street.  He 
saw  that  the  costly  hat  that  he  had  selected  for  her 
in  the  display  of  a  shop-window  after  all  was  not  the 
equal  of  the  plain  model  with  a  fetching  turn  to  the 
brim  and  a  single  militant  feather,  which  she  wore  that 
evening.  The  light  feather  boa  around  her  neck  on 
account  of  the  cool  night  air  seemed  particularly 
becoming.  He  was  near,  very  near,  her,  so  near 
that  their  elbows  touched;  but  the  nearness  was  like 
that  of  a  picture  out  of  a  frame  which  has  come  tc 
life  and  may  step  back  into  cold  canvas  at  any  moment. 
Oh,  it  was  hard,  in  the  might  of  his  love  for  her,  not 
to  forget  everything  else  and  cry  out  another  declara- 
tion, as  he  had  from  the  canyon!  But  her  face  was 
very  still.  She  was  waiting  for  him  to  begin,  while 
her  fingers  were  playing  nervously  with  the  tip  of 
her  boa. 


294  OVER  THE  PASS 

"I  must  be  frank,  very  frank,"  he  said. 

"Yes,  Jack,  or  why  speak  at  all?" 

"From  the  night  of  my  arrival  in  Little  Rivers, 
when  the  Doge  at  once  recognized  who  I  was  without 
telling  me,  I  saw  that,  under  his  politeness  and  his 
kindness,  he  was  hostile  to  my  presence  in  Little 
Rivers." 

"Yes,  I  think  that  in  a  way  he  was,"  she  answered. 

"I  was  conscious  that  something  out  of  the  past 
was  between  him  and  me,  and  that  it  included  you 
in  a  subtle  influence  that  nothing  could  change.  And 
this  afternoon,  while  you  were  at  the  house  and  my 
father  came  to  the  drawing-room  door,  I  could  not 
help  noticing  how  the  Doge  was  overcome.  You 
noticed  it,  too?" 

"Yes,  I  never  saw  my  father  in  such  anger  before. 
It  seemed  to  me  that  he  could  have  struck  down  that 
man  in  the  doorway!"  There  was  a  perceptible 
shudder,  but  she  did  not  look  up,  her  glance  remain- 
ing level  with  the  flags. 

"And  on  the  pass  you  said,  'It's  not  in  the  blood!'" 
he  continued.  "Yes,  almost  in  terror  you  said  it, 
as  if  it  spelled  an  impassable  gulf  between  us.  Why? 
why?  Mary,  haven't  I  a  right  to  know?" 

As  he  broke  off  passionately  with  this  appeal,  which 
was  as  the  focus  of  all  the  fears  that  had  tormented 
him,  they  were  immediately  under  the  light  of  a  street 
lamp.  She  turned  her  head  toward  him  resolutely,  in 
the  mustering  of  her  forces  for  an  ordeal.  Her  face 
was  pale,  but  there  was  an  effort  at  the  old  smile  of 
comradeship. 

"Yes,  as  I  said,  the  little  light  that  I  have  is  yours, 
Jack,"  she  began.  "But  there  is  not  much.  It  is, 


WITH  THE  PHANTOMS  295 

perhaps,  more  what  I  feel  than  what  I  know  that  has 
influenced  me.  All  that  my  father  has  ever  said 
about  you  and  your  father  and  your  relations  to  us 
was  the  night  after  I  returned  from  the  pass  ahead 
of  you,  when  you  had  descended  into  the  canyon  to 
frighten  me  with  the  risk  you  were  taking." 

"I  did  not  mean  to  frighten  you!"  he  interjected. 
"I  only  followed  an  impulse." 

"Yes,  one  of  your  impulses,  Jack,"  she  remarked, 
comprehendingly.  "Father  and  I  have  been  so  much 
together — indeed,  we  have  never  been  apart — that 
there  is  more  than  filial  sympathy  of  feeling  between 
us.  There  is  something  akin  to  telepathy.  We  often 
divine  each  other's  thoughts.  I  think  that  he  under- 
stood what  had  taken  place  between  us  on  the  pass; 
that  you  had  brought  on  some  sort  of  a  crisis  in  our 
relations.  It  was  then  that  he  told  me  who  you  were, 
as  you  know.  Then  he  talked  of  you  and  your  father 
— you  still  wish  to  hear?" 

"Yes!" 

"And  you  will  listen  in  silence?" 

"Yes!" 

"I  will  grant  your  defence  of  your  father,  but  you 
will  not  argue?  I  am  giving  what  you  ask,  in  justice 
to  myself;  I  am  giving  my  reasons,  my  feelings." 

"No,  I  will  not  argue." 

Their  tones  were  so  low  that  a  passer-by  would  have 
hardly  been  conscious  that  they  were  talking;  but  had 
the  passer-by  caught  the  pitch  he  might  have  hazarded 
many  guesses,  every  one  serious. 

"Then,  I  will  try  to  make  clear  all  that  father  said. 
You  were  the  image  of  your  father — a  smile  and  a 
square  chin.  The  smile  could  charm  and  the  chin 


296  OVER  THE  PASS 

could  kill.  He  liked  you  for  some  things  that  seemed 
to  spring  from  another  source,  as  he  called  it;  but 
these  would  vanish  and  in  the  end  you  would  be  like 
your  father,  as  he  knew  when  he  saw  you  break  Pedro 
Nogales's  arm.  And  you  gloried  in  your  strength;  as 
you  told  me  on  the  pass  and  as  I  saw  for  myself  in 
the  duel.  And  to  you,  father  said,  victory  was  the 
supreme  guerdon  of  life.  It  ran  triumphant  and 
inextinguishable  in  your  veins." 

"I — "  he  said,  chokingly;  but  remembered  his 
promise  not  to  argue. 

"Any  opposition,  any  refusal  excited  your  will  to 
overcome  it  in  the  sheer  joy  of  the  exercise  of  your 
strength.  This  had  been  your  father's  story  in  every- 
thing, even  in  his  marriage. " 

She  paused. 

"There  is  nothing  more?  No  further  light  on  his 
old  relations  with  my  father  and  mother?"  he  asked. 

"Only  a  single  exclamation,  'It's  not  in  the  blood 
for  you  to  believe  in  Jack  Wingfield,  Mary!'  And 
after  that  he  turned  silent  and  moody.  I  pressed 
him  for  reasons.  He  answered  that  he  had  told  me 
enough.  I  had  to  live  my  own  life;  the  rest  I  must 
decide  for  myself.  I  knew  that  I  was  hurting  him 
sorely.  I  was  striking  home  into  that  past  about 
which  he  would  never  speak,  though  I  know  it  still 
causes  him  many  days  of  suffering." 

"  But  on  the  desert  there  is  no  past ! "  Jack  exclaimed. 

"Yes,  there  is,  Jack.  There  is  your  own  heart. 
On  the  desert  your  past  is  not  shared  with  others. 
But  to-night,  after  I  received  your  note,  I  did  try, 
for  the  second  time  in  my  life,  to  share  father's.  I 
told  him  your  request;  I  spoke  of  the  scene  in  your 


WITH  THE  PHANTOMS  297 

drawing-room;  I  asked  him  what  it  meant.  He 
answered  that  you  must  learn  from  one  nearer  -you 
than  he  was,  and  that  he  never  wanted  to  think  of 
that  scene  again. " 

It  was  she  who  had  chosen  the  direction  at  the 
street  corners.  They  were  returning  now  toward 
the  hotel.  The  fingers  which  had  been  playing  with 
the  boa  had  crumpled  the  end  of  it  into  a  ball,  which 
they  were  gripping  so  tightly  that  the  knuckles  were 
little  white  spots  set  in  a  blood-red  background. 
She  was  suffering,  but  determined  to  leave  nothing 
unsaid. 

"Jack,  when  I  said  'It's  not  in  the  blood'  I  was 
more  than  repeating  my  father's  words.  They  ex- 
pressed a  truth  for  me.  I  meant  not  only  rebellion 
against  what  was  in  you,  but  against  the  thing  that 
was  in  me.  Why,  Jack,  I  do  not  even  remember  my 
own  mother!  I  have  only  heard  father  speak  of  her 
sadly  when  I  was  much  younger.  Of  late  years  he 
has  not  mentioned  her.  He  and  the  desert  and  the 
garden  are  all  I  have  and  all  I  know;  and  probably, 
yes — probably  I'm  a  strange  sort  of  being.  But  what 
I  am,  I  am;  and  to  that  I  will  be  true.  Father  went 
to  the  desert  to  save  my  life;  and  broken-hearted,  old, 
he  is  greater  to  me  than  the  sum  of  any  worldly  suc- 
cess. And,  Jack,  you  forget — riding  over  the  pass 
so  grandly  with  your  impulses,  as  if  to  want  a  thing  is 
to  get  it — you — but  we  have  had  good  times  together; 
and,  as  I  said,  you  belong  on  one  side  of  the  pass  and 
I  on  the  other.  This  and  much  else,  which  one  cannot 
see  or  define,  is  between  us.  From  the  day  you  came, 
some  forbidding  influence  seemed  at  work  in  my  father's 
life  and  mine;  and  when  you  had  gone  another  man, 


298  OVER  THE  PASS 

with  your  features  and  your  smile,  came  to  Little 
Rivers;  one  that  I  understand  even  less  than  you!" 

Jack  recalled  the  references  to  the  new  rancher  by 
Bob  Worther  on  the  day  of  his  departure  for  the  East 
and,  later,  in  Jim  Galway's  letter.  But  he  did  not 
speak.  Something  more  compelling  than  his  promise 
was  keeping  him  silent:  her  own  apprehension,  with 
its  story  of  phantoms  of  her  own. 

"And  yesterday  I  saw  your  father's  face,"  she 
went  on,  "as  it  appeared  in  the  doorway  for  a  second 
before  he  saw  my  father  and  was  struck  with  fear, 
and  how  like  yours  it  was — but  more  like  John 
Prather's.  And  the  high-sounding  preachments  about 
the  poverty  that  might  go  with  fine  gowns  became 
real  to  me.  They  were  not  banal  at  all.  They  were 
simple  truth,  free  of  rhetoric  and  pretence.  I  knew 
that  my  cry  of  'It's  not  in  the  blood'  was  as  true  in 
me  as  any  impulse  of  yours  ever  could  be  in  you!" 

To  the  end,  under  the  dominance  of  her  will,  she 
had  not  faltered;  and  with  the  end  she  looked  up  with 
a  faint  smile  of  stoicism  and  an  invincible  flame  in 
her  eyes.  Anything  that  he  might  be  able  to  say 
would  be  as  flashing  a  blade  in  and  out  of  a  blaze. 
She  had  become  superior  to  the  resources  of  barrier 
or  armor,  confident  of  a  self  whose  richness  he  realized 
anew.  He  saw  and  felt  the  tempered  fineness  of  her 
as  something  that  would  mind  neither  siege  nor  prayer. 

"I  am  not  afraid,"  she  said,  "and  I  know  that  you 
are  not.  It  is  all  right!"  Then  she  added,  with  a 
desperate  coolness,  but  still  clasping  the  boa  rigidly: 
"The  hotel  is  only  a  block  away,  and  to-morrow  you 
will  be  back  in  the  store  and  I  shall  soon  be  on  my 
side  of  the  pass." 


WITH  THE  PHANTOMS  299 

This  was  her  right  word  for  a  situation  when  his 
temples  were  throbbing,  harking  back,  with  time's 
reversal  of  conditions,  to  a  situation  after  the  duel  in 
the  arroyo  was  over  and  he  had  used  the  right  word 
when  her  temples  were  throbbing  and  her  hands 
splashed.  If  retribution  were  her  object,  she  had 
repaid  in  nerve-twitch  of  torture  for  nerve-twitch  of 
torture.  The  picture  that  had  been  alive  and  out  of 
its  frame  was  back  on  cold  canvas.  Even  the  girl 
he  had  known  across  the  barrier,  even  the  girl  in 
armor,  seemed  more  kindly.  But  one  can  talk,  even 
to  a  picture  in  a  frame;  at  least,  Jack  could,  with  wist- 
ful persistence. 

"You  don't  mind  if  I  tell  you  again — if  I  speak  my 
one  continuous  thought  aloud  again?"  he  asked. 
"Mary,  I  love  you!  I  love  you  in  such  a  way  that 
I" — with  a  faint  bravery  of  humor  as  he  saw  danger 
signals — "I  would  build  mud-houses  all  day  for  you 
to  knock  to  pieces  f" 

"Foolish  business,  Jack!"  she  answered. 

"Or  drag  a  plow." 

"Very  hard  work!" 

"Or  set  out  to  tunnel  a  mountain  single-handed, 
with  hammer  and  chisel." 

"I  think  you  would  find  it  dreadfully  monotonous 
at  the  end  of  the  first  week." 

He  had  spoken  his  extravagances  without  winning 
a  glance  from  her.  She  had  answered  with  a  pre- 
cision that  was  more  trying  than  silence. 

"I  shouldn't  find  it  so  if  you  were  in  the  neighbor- 
hood to  welcome  me  when  I  knocked  off  for  the  day, " 
he  declared.  "  You  see,  I  can't  help  it.  I  can't  help  what 
is  in  me,  just  as  surely  as  the  breath  of  life  is  in  me. " 


300  OVER  THE  PASS 

"Jack!"  she  flashed  back,  with  arresting  sharpness, 
but  without  looking  around,  while  her  step  quickened 
perceptibly,  "suppose  I  say  that  I  am  sorry  and  I, 
too,  cannot  help  it;  that  I,  too,  have  temperament, 
as  well  as  you;"  her  tone  was  almost  harsh;  "that 
even  you  cannot  have  everything  you  command;  that 
for  you  to  want  a  thing  does  not  mean  that  I  want 
it;  that  I  cannot  help  the  fact  that  I  do  not " 

With  a  quick  interruption  he  stayed  the  end  of 
the  sentence,  as  if  it  were  a  descending  blade. 

"Don't  say  that!"  he  implored.  "It  is  too  much 
like  taking  a  vow  that  might  make  you  fearfully  stub- 
born in  order  to  live  up  to  it.  Perhaps  the  thing 
will  come  some  day.  It's  wonderful  how  such  a 
thing  does  come.  You  see,  I  speak  from  experience," 
he  went  on,  in  wan  insistence,  with  the  entrance  to 
the  hotel  in  sight.  "Why,  it  is  there  before  you 
realize  it,  like  the  morning  sunshine  in  a  room  while 
you  are  yet  asleep.  And  you  open  your  eyes  and 
there  is  the  joyous  wonder,  settling  itself  all  through 
you  and  making  itself  at  home  forever.  You  know 
for  the  first  time  that  you  are  alive.  You  know  for 
the  first  time  that  you  were  born  into  this  world  merely 
because  one  other  person  was  born  into  it." 

"Very  well  said,"  she  conceded,  in  hasty  approval, 
without  vouchsafing  him  a  glaiice.  "I  begin  to 
think  you  get  more  inspiration  for  compliments  on 
this  side  of  the  pass  than  on  the  other," — and  they 
were  at  the  hotel  door.  Precipitately  she  hastened 
through  it,  as  if  with  her  last  display  of  strength  after 
the  exhaustion  of  that  walk. 


XXXI 

PRATHER  WOULD  NOT  WAIT 

When  he  returned  to  the  house,  Jack  found  a  letter 
that  had  come  in  the  late  mail  from  Jim  Gal  way: 

"First  off,  that  story  you  sent  for  Belvy,"  Jim 
wrote.  "We've  heard  it  read  and  reread,  and  the 
more  it's  worn  with  reading  the  fresher  it  gets  in  our 
minds.  As  I  size  up  the  effect  on  the  population, 
we  folks  in  the  forties  and  fifties  got  more  fun  out  of 
it  than  anybody  except  the  folks  in  the  seventies  and 
the  five-to-twelve-year-olds.  Some  of  the  thirteen 
and  fourteen-year-olds  were  inclined  to  think  at  first 
that  it  wasn't  quite  grown  up  enough  for  them,  until 
they  saw  what  fashionable  literature  it  was  becoming, 
Then  their  dignified  maturity  limbered  up  a  little. 
Jack,  it  certainly  did  us  a  world  of  good.  It  seemed 
as  if  you  were  back  home  again." 

"Back  home  again!"  Jack  repeated,  joyously;  and 
then  shook  his  head  at  himself  in  solemn  warning. 

"And  those  of  us  that  don't  take  our  meat  without 
salt  sort  of  needed  cheering  up, "  Jim  went  on.  "  Only 
a  few  days  after  I  wrote  you,  the  Doge  and  Mary 
suddenly  started  for  New  York.  Maybe  he  has 
looked  you  up."  (The  "maybe"  followed  an  "of 
301 


302  OVER  THE  PASS 

course,"  which  had  been  scratched  through.)  "And 
maybe  if  he  has  you  know  more  about  what  is  going 
on  here  than  we  do.  We  practically  don't  know 
anything;  but  I've  sure  got  a  feeling  of  that  uncer- 
tainty in  the  atmosphere  that  I  used  to  have  before 
a  cyclone  when  I  lived  in  Kansas.  This  Prather, 
that  so  many  thought  at  first  looked  like  you,  has 
also  gone  to  New  York. 

"He  left  only  two  days  ago.  Maybe  you  will  run 
across  him.  I  don't  know,  but  it  seems  to  me  he's 
gone  to  get  the  powder  for  some  kind  of  a  blow-up 
here.  Jack,  you  know  what  would  happen  if  we 
lost  our  water  rights  and  you  know  what  I  wrote  you 
in  my  last  letter.  Leddy  and  Ropey  Smith  are  hang- 
ing around  all  the  time,  and  since  the  Doge  went  a 
whole  lot  of  fellows  that  don't  belong  to  the  honey-bee 
class  have  been  turning  up  and  putting  up  their  tents 
out  on  the  outskirts,  like  they  expected  something 
to  happen.  If  things  get  worse  and  I've  got  some- 
thing to  go  on  and  we  need  you,  I'm  going  to  tele- 
graph just  as  I  said  I  would;  because,  Jack,  though 
you're  worth  a  lot  of  millions,  someway  we  feel  you're 
one  of  us. 

"Very  truly  yours  for  Little  Rivers, 

"JAMES  R.  GALWAT. 

"P.  S. — Belvy  said  to  put  in  P.  S.  because  P.  S.'s 
are  always  the  most  important  part  of  a  letter.  She 
wants  to  know  if  you  won't  write  another  story." 

"I  will!"  said  Jack.     "I  will,  immediately!" 
He  made  it  a  long  story.     He  took  a  deal  of  pains 
with  it  in  the  very  relief  of  something  to  do  when 
sleep  was  impossible  and  he  must  count  the  moments 


PRATHER  WOULD  NOT  WAIT        303 

in  wretched  impatience  until  his  interview  with  the 
one  person  who  could  answer  his  questions. 

As  he  went  down  town  in  the  morning  the  very 
freshness  of  the  air  inspired  him  with  the  hope  that 
he  should  come  out  of  his  father's  office  with  every 
phantom  reduced  to  a  figment  of  imagination  spring- 
ing from  the  abnormality  of  his  life-story;  with  a 
message  that  should  allay  Mary's  fears  and  soften 
her  harshness  toward  him;  with  the  certainty  that 
the  next  time  he  and  his  father  sat  together  at  dinner 
it  would  be  in  a  permanent  understanding,  craved  of 
affection.  Mary  might  come  to  New  York;  the  Doge 
might  spend  his  declining  years  in  leisurely  patronage 
of  bookshops  and  galleries;  and  he  would  learn  how 
to  run  the  business,  though  his  head  split,  as  became 
a  simple,  normal  son. 

These  eddying  thoughts  on  the  surface  of  his  mind, 
however,  could  not  free  him  of  a  consciousness  of  a 
deep,  unsounded  current  that  seemed  to  be  the  irre- 
sistible, moving  power  of  Mary's  future,  the  store's, 
his  father's,  Jasper  E wold's  and  his  own.  With  it 
he  was  going  into  a  gorge,  over  a  cataract,  or  out  into 
pleasant  valleys,  he  knew  not  which.  He  knew  noth- 
ing except  that  there  was  no  stopping  the  flood  of 
the  current  which  had  its  source  in  streams  already 
flowing  before  he  was  born.  When  the  last  question 
had  been  asked  his  future  would  be  clear.  Relief  was 
ahead,  and  after  relief  would  come  the  end  of  intro- 
spection and  the  beginning  of  his  real  career. 

But  another  question  was  waiting  for  him  in  the 
store.  It  was  walking  the  streets  of  his  father's  city 
in  the  freedom  of  a  spectator  who  comes  to  observe 
and  not  to  buy.  Crossing  the  first  floor  as  he  came 


304  OVER  THE  PASS 

to  the  court,  Jack  saw,  with  sudden  distinctness 
among  the  many  faces  coming  and  going,  a  profile 
which,  in  its  first  association,  developed  on  his  vision 
as  that  of  his  own  when  he  shaved  in  front  of  the  ear 
in  the  morning.  He  had  only  a  glimpse  before  it  was 
turned  away  and  its  owner,  a  young  man  in  a  quiet 
gray  suit,  started  up  the  stairs. 

Jack  studied  the  young  man's  back  half  amusedly 
to  see  if  this,  too,  were  like  his  own,  and  laughed  at 
himself  because  he  was  sure  that  he  would  not  know 
his  own  back  if  it  were  preceding  him  in  a  promenade 
up  the  Avenue.  In  peculiar  suspense  he  was  hoping 
that  the  young  man  would  pause  and  look  around, 
as  his  father  always  did  and  shoppers  often  did,  in  a 
survey  of  the  busy,  moving  picture  of  the  whole  floor. 
But  the  young  man  went  on  to  the  top  of  the  flight. 
There  he  proceeded  along  the  railing  of  the  court. 
His  profile  was  again  in  view  under  a  strong  light, 
and  Jack  realized  that  his  first  recognition  of  a  resem- 
blance was  the  recognition  of  an  indisputable  fact. 

"Have  I  a  double  out  West  and  another  in  New 
York?  "  he  thought.  "  It  gives  a  man  a  kind  of  second- 
hand feeling!" 

Then  he  recalled  Jim's  letter  saying  that  John 
Prather  had  gone  to  New  York.  Was  this  John 
Prather?  He  had  no  doubt  that  it  was  when  the 
object  of  his  scrutiny,  with  full  face  in  view,  stopped 
and  leaned  over  the  balcony  just  above  the  diamond 
counter.  There  was  a  mole  patch  on  the  cheek  such 
as  Jack  remembered  that  the  accounts  of  John  Prather 
had  mentioned. 

"I  am  as  much  fussed  as  the  giant  was  at  the  sight 
of  yellow!"  Jack  mused. 


PRATHER  WOULD  NOT  WAIT         305 

But  for  the  mole  patch  the  features  were  his  own, 
as  he  knew  them,  though  no  one  not  given  to  more 
frequent  personal  councils  with  mirrors  than  Senor 
Don't  Care  of  desert  trails  knows  quite  the  lights  and 
shadows  of  his  own  countenance,  which  give  it  its 
character  even  more  than  does  its  form.  John  Prather 
was  regarding  the  jewelry  display,  where  the  diamonds 
were  scintillating  under  the  light  from  the  milk  glass 
roof,  with  a  smile  of  amused  contemplation.  His  ex- 
pression was  unpleasant  to  Jack.  It  had  a  quality  of 
satire  and  of  covetousness  as  its  owner  leaned  farther 
over  the  rail  and  rubbed  the  palms  of  his  hands  together 
as  gleefully  as  if  the  diamonds  were  about  to  fly  into 
his  pockets  by  enchantment. 

All  the  time  Jack  had  stood  motionless  in  fixed 
and  amazed  observation.  He  wondered  that  his  stare 
had  not  drawn  the  other's  attention.  But  John  Prather 
seemed  too  preoccupied  with  the  dazzle  of  wealth  to 
be  susceptible  to  any  telepathic  influence. 

"Great  heavens!  I  am  gaping  at  him  as  if  he 
were  climbing  hand  over  hand  up  the  face  of  a  sky- 
scraper!" Jack  thought.  It  was  time  something 
happened.  Why  should  he  get  so  wrought  up  over 
the  fact  that  another  man  looked  like  him?  "I'll 
get  acquainted!"  he  declared,  shaking  himself  free 
of  his  antipathy.  "We  are  both  from  Little  Rivera 
and  that's  a  ready  excuse  for  introducing  myself." 

As  he  started  across  the  floor  toward  the  stairs, 
Prather  straightened  from  his  leaning  posture.  For 
an  instant  his  glance  seemed  to  rest  on  Jack.  Indeed, 
eye  met  eye  for  a  flash;  and  then  Prather  moved  away. 
His  decision  to  go  might  easily  have  been  the  electric 
result  of  Jack's  own  decision  to  join  him.  Jack  ran 


306  OVER  JTHE  PASS 

up  the  stairs.  At  the  head  of  the  flight  he  saw,  at 
half  the  distance  across  the  floor,  Prather's  back 
entering  an  elevator  on  the  down  trip.  He  hurried 
forward,  his  desire  to  meet  and  speak  with  the  man 
whose  influence  Jim  Galway  and  Mary  feared  now 
overwhelming. 

"Hello!"  Jack  sang  out;  and  this  to  Prather's  face 
after  he  had  turned  around  in  the  elevator. 

In  the  second  while  the  elevator  man  was  swinging 
to  the  door,  Jack  and  Prather  were  fairly  looking  at 
each  other.  Prather  had  seen  that  Jack  wanted  to 
speak  to  him,  even  if  he  had  not  heard  the  call.  His 
answer  was  a  smile  of  mixed  recognition  and  satire. 
He  made  a  gesture  of  appreciative  understanding  of 
the  distinction  in  their  likeness  by  touching  the  mole 
on  his  cheek  with  his  finger,  which  was  Jack's  last 
glimpse  of  him  before  he  was  shot  down  into  the  lower 
regions  of  the  store. 

"He  did  it  neatly!"  Jack  gasped,  with  a  sense  of 
defeat  and  chagrin.  "And  it  is  plain  that  he  does  not 
care  to  get  acquainted.  Perhaps  he  takes  it  for  granted 
that  I  am  not  friendly  and  foresaw  that  I  would  ask 
him  a  lot  of  questions  about  Little  Rivers  that  he 
would  not  care  to  answer."  At  all  events,  the  only 
way  to  accept  the  situation  was  lightly,  his  reason 
insisted.  "Having  heard  about  the  likeness,  possibly 
he  came  to  the  store  to  have  a  look  at  me,  and  after 
seeing  me  felt  that  he  had  been  libeled!" 

But  his  feelings  refused  to  follow  his  reason  in  an 
amused  view. 

"I  do  not  like  John  Prather!"  he  concluded,  as  he 
took  the  next  elevator  to  the  top  floor.  "Yes,  I 
liked  Pete  Leddy  better  at  our  first  meeting.  I  had 


PRATHER  WOULD  NOT  WAIT         307 

rather  a  man  would  swear  at  me  than  smile  in  that 
fashion.  It  is  much  more  simple." 

The  incident  had  had  such  a  besetting  and  disa- 
greeable effect  that  Jack  would  have  found  it  difficult 
to  rid  his  mind  of  it  if  he  had  not  had  a  more  centering 
and  pressing  object  in  prospect  in  the  citadel  of  the 
push-buttons  behind  the  glass  marked  "Private." 

John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  looked  up  from  his  desk  in 
covert  watchfulness  to  detect  his  son's  mood,  and  he 
was  conscious  of  a  quality  of  manner  that  recalled 
the  returning  exile's  entry  into  the  same  room  upon 
his  arrival  from  the  West. 

"Well,  Jack,"  the  father  said,  with  marked  cheer- 
iness,  "I  hear  you  have  been  taking  a  holiday.  It's 
all  right,  and  you  will  find  motoring  beats  pony  riding. " 

"In  some  ways,"  Jack  answered;  and  then  he  came 
a  step  nearer,  his  hand  resting  on  the  edge  of  the  desk, 
as  he  looked  into  his  father's  eyes  with  glowing  candor. 

John  Wingfield,  Sr.'s  eyes  shifted  to  the  push- 
buttons and  later  to  a  paper  on  the  desk,  with  which 
his  fingers  played  gently.  He  realized  instantly  that 
something  unusual  was  on  Jack's  mind. 

"Father,"  Jack  went  on,  "I  want  a  long  talk  quite 
alone  with  you.  When  it  is  over  I  feel  that  we  shall 
both  know  each  other  better;  we  can  work  together 
in  a  fuller  understanding. " 

"Yes,  Jack,"  answered  the  father,  cautiously  feel- 
ing his  way  with  a  swift  upward  glance,  which  fell 
again  to  the  paper.  "Well,  what  is  it  now?  Come 
on!" 

"There  are  a  lot  of  questions  I  want  to  ask — family 
questions. " 

"Family  questions?"    The  fingers  paused  in  play- 


308  OVER  THE  PASS 

ing  with  the  paper  for  an  instant  and  went  on  playing 
again.  The  soft  hands  were  as  white  as  the  paper. 
"Family  questions,  eh?  Well,  there  isn't  much  to 
our  family  except  you  and  I  and  that  old  ancestor — 
and  a  long  talk,  you  say?" 

"Yes.  I  thought  that  probably  this  would  be  a 
good  time;  you  could  give  me  an  hour  now.  It  might 
not  take  that  long." 

Jack's  voice  was  even  and  engaging  and  respectful. 
But  it  seemed  to  fill  the  room  with  many  echoing 
whispers. 

"I  have  a  very  busy  day  before  me,"  the  father 
said,  still  without  looking  up.  He  was  talking  to  a 
little  pad  at  one  corner  of  the  green  blotter  which 
had  a  list  of  his  appointments.  "Your  questions  are 
not  so  imperative  that  they  cannot  wait?" 

"Then  shall  it  be  at  dinner?"  Jack  asked. 

"At  dinner?  No.  I  have  an  engagement  for 
dinner." 

"Shall  you  be  home  early?  Shall  I  wait  up  for 
you?"  Jack  persisted. 

"Yes,  that's  it!  .Say  at  nine.  I'll  make  a  point 
of  it — in  the  library  at  nine!"  John  Wingfield,  Sr.'s 
hand  slipped  away  from  the  papers  and  patted  the 
back  of  Jack's  hand.  "And  come  on  with  your  ques- 
tions. I  will  answer  every  one  that  I  can."  He  was 
looking  up  at  Jack  now,  smilingly  and  attractively  in 
his  frankness.  "Every  one  that  I  can,  from  the  first 
John  Wingfield  right  down  to  the  present!" 

But  the  hand  that  lay  on  Jack's  was  cold  and  its 
movement  nervous  and  spasmodic. 

"Thank  you,  father.  I  knew  you  would.  I  haven't 
forgotten  your  wish  that  I  should  bring  all  my  doubts 


PRATHER  WOULD  NOT  WAIT        309 

and  questions  to  you,"  said  Jack,  happily.  And  in 
an  impulse  which  had  the  devoutness  of  a  rising  hope 
he  took  that  cold,  soft  hand  in  both  of  his  and  gave  it 
a  shake;  and  the  feel  of  the  son's  grip,  firm  and  warm, 
remained  with  John  Wmgfield,  Sr.,  while  he  stared  at 
the  door  through  which  Jack  had  passed  out.  When 
he  had  pulled  himself  together  he  asked  Mortimer  to 
connect  him  with  Dr.  Bennington. 

"Doctor,  I  want  a  little  talk  with  you  to-night 
before  nine,"  he  said.  "Could  you  dine  with  me — 
not  at  the  house — say  at  the  club?  Yes — excellent — 
and  make  it  at  seven-  Yes.  Good-by!" 


XXXII 

A  CRISIS  IN  THE  WINGFIELD  LIBRARY 

A  library  atmosphere  was  missing  from  the  Wing- 
field  library,  with  its  heavy  panelling  and  rows  of  red 
and  blue  morocco  backs.  Rather  the  suggestion  was 
of  a  bastion  of  privacy,  where  a  man  of  action  might 
make  his  plans  or  take  counsel  at  leisure  amid  rich 
and  mellow  surroundings.  Here,  John  Wingfield,  Sr., 
had  gained  points  through  post-prandial  geniality 
which  he  could  never  have  won  in  the  presence  of 
the  battery  of  push-buttons;  here,  his  most  successful 
conceptions  had  come  to  him;  here,  he  had  known 
the  greatest  moments  of  his  life.  He  was  right  in 
saying  that  he  loved  his  library;  but  he  hardly  loved 
it  for  its  books. 

When  he  returned  to  the  house  shortly  before  nine 
from  his  session  with  Dr.  Bennington,  it  was  with 
the  knowledge  that  another  great  moment  was  in 
prospect.  He  took  a  few  turns  up  and  down  the 
room  before  he  rang  for  the  butler  to  tell  Jack  that 
he  had  come  in.  Then  he  placed  a  chair  near  the 
desk,  where  its  occupant  would  sit  facing  him.  After 
he  sat  down  he  moved  the  desk  lamp,  which  was  the 
only  light  in  the  room,  so  that  its  rays  fell  on  the  back 
of  the  chair  and  left  his  own  face  in  shadow — a  pre- 
caution which  he  had  taken  on  many  other  occasions 
in  adroitness  of  stage  management.  He  drew  from 
310 


A  CRISIS  IN  THE  WINGFIELD  LIBRARY    311 

the  humidor  drawer  of  his  desk  a  box  of  the  long  cigars 
with  blunt  ends  which  need  no  encircling  gilt  band 
in  praise  of  their  quality. 

As  Jack  entered,  the  father  welcomed  him  with  a 
warm,  paternal  smile.  And  be  it  remembered  that 
John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  could  smile  most  pleasantly,  and 
he  knew  the  value  of  his  smile.  Jack  answered  the 
smile  with  one  of  his  own,  a  little  wan,  a  little  sub- 
dued, yet  enlivening  under  the  glow  of  his  father's  evi- 
dent happiness  at  seeing  him.  The  father,  who  had 
transgressed  the  rules  of  longevity  by  taking  a  second 
cigar  after  dinner,  now  pushed  the  box  across  the 
desk  to  his  son.  Jack  said  that  he  would  "roll  one"; 
he  did  not  care  to  smoke  much.  He  produced  a  small 
package  of  flake  tobacco  and  a  packet  of  rice  paper, 
and  with  a  deftness  that  was  like  sleight  of  hand  made 
a  cigarette  without  spilling  a  single  flake.  He  had 
not  always  chosen  the  "makings"  in  place  of  private 
stock  Havanas,  but  it  seemed  to  suit  his  mood  to-night. 

"That  is  one  of  the  things  you  learned  in  the  West, " 
the  father  observed  affably,  to  break  the  ice. 

"I  can  do  them  with  one  hand,"  Jack  answered. 
"But  you  are  likely  to  have  an  overflow — which  is 
all  right  when  you  have  the  whole  desert  for  the  litter. 
Besides,  in  a  library  it  would  have  the  effect  of  gallery 
play,  I  fear." 

He  was  seated  in  a  way  that  revealed  all  the  supple 
lines  of  his  figure.  However  relaxed  his  attitude 
before  his  father,  it  was  always  suggestive  of  latent 
strength,  appealing  at  once  to  paternal  pride  and 
paternal  uncertainty  as  to  what  course  the  strength 
would  take.  His  face  under  the  light  of  the  lamp 
was  boyish  end  singularly  without  trace  of  guile. 


312  OVER  THE  PASS 

The  father  struck  a  match  and  held  it  to  light  his 
son's  cigarette;  another  habit  of  his  which  he  had 
found  flattering  to  men  who  were  brought  into  the 
library  for  conference.  Jack  took  a  puff  slowly  and, 
after  a  time,  another  puff,  and  then  dropped  the  cigar- 
ette on  the  ash  receiver  as  much  as  to  say  that  he 
had  smoked  enough.  Something  told  John  Wingfield, 
Sr.,  that  this  was  to  be  a  long  interview  and  in  no 
way  hurried,  as  he  saw  the  smile  dying  on  the  son's 
lips  and  misery  coming  into  the  son's  eyes. 

"These  last  two  days  have  been  pretty  poignant 
for  me,"  Jack  began,  in  a  simple,  outright  fashion; 
"and  only  half  an  hour  ago  I  got  this.  It  was  hard 
to  resist  taking  the  first  train  West."  He  drew  a 
telegram  from  his  pocket  and  handed  it  to  his  father. 

"We  want  you  and  though  we  don't  suppose  you 
can  come,  we  simply  had  to  let  you  know. 

"JAMES  R.  GALWAY." 

"It  is  Greek  to  me,"  said  the  father.  "From  your 
Little  Rivers  friends,  I  judge." 

"Yes.  I  suppose  that  we  may  as  well  begin  with 
it,  as  it  drove  everything  else  out  of  my  mind  for  the 
moment. " 

John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  swung  around  in  his  chair, 
with  his  face  in  the  shadow.  His  attitude  was  that 
of  a  companionable  listener  who  is  prepared  for  any 
kind  of  news. 

"As  you  will,  Jack,"  he  said.  "Everything  that 
pertains  to  you  is  my  interest.  Go  ahead  in  your 
own  way." 

"It  concerns  John  Prather.     I  don't  know  that  I 


A  CRISIS  IN  THE  WINGFIELD  LIBRARY    313 

have  ever  told  you  about  him  in  my  talks  of  Little 
Rivers." 

"John  Prather?"  The  father  reflectively  sounded 
the  name,  the  while  he  studied  the  spiral  of  smoke 
rising  from  his  cigar.  "No,  I  don't  think  you  have 
mentioned  him." 

It  was  Jack's  purpose  to  take  his  father  entirely 
into  his  confidence;  to  reveal  his  own  mind  so  that 
there  should  be  nothing  of  its  perplexities  which  his 
father  did  not  understand.  He  might  not  choose  a 
logical  sequence  of  thought  or  event,  but  in  the  end 
nothing  should  be  left  untold.  Indeed,  he  had  not 
studied  how  to  begin  his  inquiries.  That  he  had  left 
to  take  care  of  itself.  His  chief  solicitude  was  to 
keep  his  mind  open  and  free  of  bitterness  whatever 
transpired,  and  it  was  evident  that  he  was  under  a 
great  strain. 

He  told  of  the  coming  of  John  Prather  to  Little 
Rivers  while  he  was  absent;  of  the  mention  of  the 
likeness  by  his  fellow-ranchers;  and  of  the  fears  enter- 
tained by  Jim  Galway  and  Mary.  When  he  came 
to  the  scene  in  the  store  that  afternoon  it  was  given 
in  a  transparent  fulness  of  detail;  while  all  his  chang- 
ing emotions,  from  his  first  glimpse  of  Prather's  profile 
to  the  effort  to  speak  with  him  and  the  ultimatum  of 
Prather's  satirical  gesture,  were  reflected  in  his  fea- 
tures. He  was  the  story-teller,  putting  his  gift  to  an 
unpleasant  task  in  illumination  of  sober  fact  and  not 
the  uses  of  imagination;  and  his  audience  was  his 
father's  cheek  and  ear  in  the  shadow. 

"Extraordinary!"  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  exclaimed 
when  Jack  had  finished,  glancing  around  with  a  shrug. 
"Naturally,  you  were  irritated.  I  like  to  think  that 


314  OVER  THE  PASS 

only  two  men  have  the  Wingfield  features — the  features 
of  the  ancestor — yes,  only  two:  you  and  I!" 

"It  was  more  than  irritation;  it  was  something 
profound  and  disturbing,  almost  revolting!"  Jack 
exclaimed,  under  the  disagreeable  spell  of  his  vivid 
recollection  of  the  incident.  "The  resemblance  to 
you  was  so  striking,  father,  especially  in  the  profile!" 
Jack  was  leaning  forward,  the  better  to  see  his  father's 
profile,  dim  in  the  half  light.  "Yes,  recognizable  in- 
stantly— the  nose  and  the  lines  about  the  mouth!  You 
have  never  met  anyone  who  has  seen  this  man?  You 
have  never  heard  of  him?  "  he  asked,  almost  morbidly. 

John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  broke  into  a  laugh,  which 
was  deprecatory  and  metallic.  He  looked  fairly  into 
Jack's  eyes  with  a  kind  of  inquiring  amazement  at 
the  boy's  overwrought  intensity. 

"Why,  no,  Jack,"  he  said,  reassuringly.  "If  I 
had  I  shouldn't  have  forgotten  it,  you  may  be  sure. 
And,  well,  Jack,  there  is  no  use  of  being  sensitive 
about  it,  though  I  understand  your  indignation — • 
especially  after  he  flaunted  the  fact  of  the  resemblance 
in  such  a  manner  and  refused  to  meet  you.  From 
what  I  have  heard  about  that  fight  with  Leddy — Dr. 
Bennington  told  me — I  can  appreciate  why  he  did 
not  care  to  meet  you."  He  laughed,  more  genially 
this  time,  in  the  survey  of  his  son's  broad  shoulders. 
"I  fear  there  is  something  of  the  old  ancestor's  devil 
in  you  when  you  get  going!"  he  added. 

So  his  father  had  seen  this,  too — what  Mary  had 
seen — this  thing  born  in  him  with  the  coming  of  his 
strength! 

"Yes,  I  suppose  there  is,"  he  admitted,  ruefully. 
"Yes,  I  have  reason  to  know  that  there  is." 


A  CRISIS  IN  THE  WINGFIELD  LIBRARY    315 

His  face  went  moody.  Any  malice  toward  John 
Prather  passed.  He  was  penitent  for  a  feeling  against 
a  stranger  that  seemed  akin  to  the  dormant  instinct 
that  had  made  him  glory  in  holding  a  bead  on  Pete 
Leddy. 

"And  I  am  glad  of  it!"  said  John  Wingfield,  Sr., 
with  a  flash  of  stronger  emotion  than  he  had  yet  shown 
in  the  interview. 

"I  am  not.  It  makes  me  almost  afraid  of  myself," 
Jack  answered. 

"Oh,  I  don't  mean  firing  six-shooters — hardly! 
I  mean  backbone,"  he  hastened  to  add,  almost  ingra- 
tiatingly. "It  is  a  thing  to  control,  Jack,  not  to 
worry  about." 

"Yes,  to  control!"  said  Jack,  dismally. 

He  was  hearing  Ignacio's  cry  of  "The  devil  is  out 
of  Sefior  Don't  Care!"  and  seeing  for  the  thousandth 
time  Mary's  horrified  face  as  he  pressed  Pedro  Nogales 
against  the  hedge.  Now  poise  was  all  on  the  side  of 
the  father,  who  glanced  away  from  Jack  at  the  glint 
of  the  library  cases  in  the  semi-darkness  in  satisfaction. 
But  only  a  moment  did  the  son's  absent  mood  last. 
He  leaned  forward  quivering,  free  from  his  spell  of  re- 
flection, and  his  words  came  pelting  like  hail.  He 
was  at  grip  with  the  phantoms  and  nothing  should 
loosen  his  hold  till  the  truth  was  out. 

"Father,  I  could  not  fail  to  see  the  look  on  your 
face  and  the  look  on  Jasper  Ewold's  when  you  found 
him  in  the  drawing-room!" 

At  the  sudden  reversal  of  his  son's  attitude,  John 
Wingfield,  Sr.,  had  drawn  back  into  the  shadow,  as 
if  in  defensive  instinct  before  the  force  that  was  beat- 
ing in  Jack's  voice. 


316  OVER  THE  PASS 

"Yes,  I  was  startled;  yes,  very  startled!  But,  go 
on!  Speak  everything  that  you  have  in  mind;  for  it 
is  evident  that  you  have  much  to  say.  Go  on!"  he 
repeated  more  calmly,  and  turned  his  face  farther  into 
the  shadow,  while  he  inclined  his  head  toward  Jack  as 
if  to  hear  better.  One  leg  had  drawn  up  under  him 
and  was  pressing  against  the  chair. 

Jack  waited  a  moment  to  gather  his  thoughts. 
When  he  spoke  his  passion  was  gone. 

"We  have  always  been  as  strangers,  father,"  he 
began.  "I  have  no  recollection  of  you  in  childhood 
until  that  day  you  came  as  a  stranger  to  the  house 
at  Versailles.  I  was  seven,  then.  My  mother  was 
away,  as  you  will  recall.  I  remember  that  you  did 
not  kiss  me  or  show  any  affection.  You  did  not 
even  say  who  you  were.  You  looked  me  over,  and  I 
was  very  frail.  I  saw  that  I  did  not  please  you;  and 
I  did  not  like  you.  In  my  childish  perversity  I  would 
speak  only  French  to  you,  which  you  did  not  under- 
stand. When  my  mother  came  home,  do  you  remem- 
ber her  look?  I  do.  She  went  white  as  chalk  and 
trembled.  I  was  frightened  with  the  thought  that 
she  was  going  to  die.  It  was  a  little  while  before 
she  spoke  and  when  she  did  speak  she  was  like  stone. 
She  asked  you  what  you  wanted,  as  if  you  were  an 
intruder.  You  said:  'I  have  been  looking  at  the 
boy!'  Your  expression  told  me  again  that  you  were 
not  pleased  with  me.  Without  another  word  you 
departed.  I  can  still  hear  your  steps  on  the  walk 
as  you  went  away;  they  were  so  very  firm." 

"Yes,  Jack,  I  can  never  forget."  The  tone  was 
that  of  a  man  racked.  "What  else?"  he  asked.  "Go 
on,  Jack!" 


A  CRISIS  IN  THE  WIXGFIELD  LIBRARY    317 

"You  know  the  life  my  mother  and  I  led,  study 
and  play  together.  And  that  was  the  only  time  you 
saw  me  until  I  was  fourteen.  I  was  mortally  in  awe 
of  you  then  and  in  awe  of  you  the  day  I  went  West 
with  your  message  to  get  strong.  But  I  got  strong; 
yes,  strong,  father!" 

"Yes,  Jack,"  said  the  father.  "Yes,  Jack,  leave 
nothing  unsaid — nothing ! ' ' 

Now  Jack  swept  back  to  the  villa  garden  in  Flor- 
ence, the  day  of  the  Doge's  call;  and  from  there  to 
the  Doge's  glance  of  recognition  that  first  night  in 
Little  Rivers;  then  to  the  scene  in  front  of  the  book- 
store, when  the  Doge  hesitated  about  going  to  see 
the  Velasquez.  He  pictured  the  Doge's  absorption 
over  the  mother's  portrait;  he  repeated  Mary's  story 
on  the  previous  evening. 

All  the  while  the  profile,  so  dimly  outlined  in  the 
outer  darkness  beyond  the  lamp's  circle  of  light,  to 
which  he  had  been  speaking,  had  not  stirred.  The 
father's  cigar  had  gone  out.  It  lay  idly  in  his  fingers, 
which  rested  on  the  arm  of  the  chair,  above  a  tiny 
pile  of  ashes  on  the  rug.  But  there  was  no  other  sign 
of  emotion,  except  his  half  affirmative  interjections, 
with  a  confessional's  encouragement  to  empty  the 
mind  of  its  every  affliction. 

"Why  were  my  mother  and  myself  always  in  exile? 
What  was  this  barrier  between  you  and  her?  WTiy 
was  it  that  I  never  saw  you?  Why  this  bitterness 
of  Jasper  Ewold  against  you?  Why  should  that 
bitterness  be  turned  against  me?  I  want  to  know, 
father,  so  that  we  can  start  afresh  and  right.  I  no 
longer  want  to  be  in  the  dark,  with  its  mystery,  but 
in  the  light,  where  I  can  grapple  with  the  truth!" 


318  OVER  THE  PASS 

There  was  no  rancor,  no  crashing  of  sentences; 
only  high  tension  in  the  finality  of  an  inquiry  in  which 
hope  and  fear  rose  together. 

"Yes,  Jack!"  exclaimed  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  after 
a  silence  in  which  he  seemed  to  be  passing  all  that 
Jack  had  said  in  review.  "I  am  glad  you  have  told 
me  this;  that  you  have  come  to  the  one  to  whom 
you  should  come  in  trouble.  You  have  made  it  pos- 
sible for  me  to  speak  of  something  that  I  never  found 
a  way  to  speak  about,  myself.  For,  Jack,  you  truly 
have  been  a  stranger  to  me  and  I  to  you,  thanks  to 
the  chain  of  influences  which  you  have  mentioned." 

Very  slowly  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  had  turned  in  his 
chair.  Distress  was  rising  in  his  tone  as  he  leaned 
toward  Jack.  His  face  under  the  rim  of  light  of  the 
lamp  had  a  new  charm,  which  was  not  that  of  the 
indulgent  or  flattering  or  winning  smile,  or  the  mas- 
terful set  of  his  chin  on  an  object.  He  seemed  pallid 
and  old,  struggling  against  a  phantom  himself;  almost 
pitiful,  this  man  of  strength,  while  his  eyes  looked  into 
Jack's  with  limpid  candor. 

"Jack,  I  will  tell  you  all  I  can,"  he  said.  "I  want 
to.  It  is  duty.  It  is  'relief.  But  first,  will  you  tell 
me  what  your  mother  told  you?  What  her  reasons 
were?  I  have  a  right  to  know  that,  haven't  I,  in 
my  effort  to  make  my  side  clear?  "  He  spoke  in  direct, 
intimate  appeal. 

Jack's  lips  were  trembling  and  his  whole  nature 
was  throbbing  in  a  new-found  sympathy.  For  the 
first  time  he  saw  his  father  as  a  man  of  sensitive  feel- 
ing, capable  of  deep  suffering.  And  he  was  to  have 
the  truth,  all  the  truth,  in  kindness  and  affection. 

" After  you  had  left  the  house  at  Versailles,"  said 


A  CRISIS  IN  THE  WINGFIELD  LIBRARY    319 

Jack,  "she  took  me  in  her  arms  and  said  that  you 
were  my  father.  'Did  you  like  him?'  she  asked;  and 
I  said  no,  realizing  nothing  but  the  childish  impres- 
sion of  the  interview.  At  that  she  was  wildly,  almost 
hysterically,  triumphant.  I  was  glad  to  have  made 
her  so  happy.  'You  are  mine  alone!  You  have  only 
me!'  she  declared  over  and  over  again.  'And  you 
must  never  ask  me  any  questions,  for  that  is  best.' 
She  never  mentioned  you  afterward;  and  in  all  my 
life,  until  I  was  fourteen,  I  was  never  away  from 
her." 

Again  the  palm  of  John  Wingfield,  Sr.'s  hand  ran 
back  and  forth  over  his  knee  and  the  foot  that  was 
against  the  chair  leg  beat  a  nervous  tattoo;  while 
he  drew  a  longer  breath  than  usual,  which  might  have 
been  either  of  surprise  or  relief.  His  face  fell  back 
behind  the  rim  of  the  lamp's  rays,  but  he  did  not 
turn  it  away  as  he  had  when  Jack  was  talking. 

"You  know  only  the  Jasper  Ewold  who  has  been 
mellowed  by  time,"  he  began.  "His  scholarship  was 
a  bond  of  companionship  for  you  in  the  isolation  of  a 
small  community.  I  know  him  as  boy  and  young 
man.  He  was  very  precocious.  At  the  age  of  eight, 
as  I  remember,  he  could  read  his  Caesar.  You  will 
appreciate  what  that  meant  in  a  New  England  town — 
that  he  was  somewhat  spoiled  by  admiration.  And, 
naturally,  his  character  and  mine  were  very  different, 
thanks  to  the  difference  in  our  situations;  for  the 
Ewolds  had  a  good  deal  of  money  in  those  days.  I 
was  the  type  of  boy  who  was  ready  to  work  at  any 
kind  of  odd  job  in  order  to  get  dimes  and  quarters 
*9*  my  little  bank. 

"Well,  it  is  quite  absurd  to  go  back  to  that  as  the 


320  OVER  THE  PASS 

beginning  of  Jasper  Ewold's  feelings  toward  me; 
but  one  day  young  Wingfield  felt  that  young  Ewold 
was  patronizing  him.  We  had  a  turn  at  fisticuffs 
which  resulted  in  my  favor.  Jasper  was  a  proud  boy, 
and  he  never  quite  forgave  me.  In  fact,  he  was  not 
used  to  being  crossed.  Learning  was  easy  for  him; 
he  was  good-looking;  he  had  an  attractive  manner, 
and  it  seemed  only  his  right  that  all  doors  should  open 
when  he  knocked.  Soon  after  our  battle  he  went 
away  to  school.  Not  until  we  were  well  past  thirty 
did  our  paths  cross  again.  He  was  something  of  a 
painter,  but  he  really  had  had  no  set  purpose  in  life 
except  the  pleasures  of  his  intellectual  diversions. 
I  will  not  say  that  he  was  wild,  but  at  least  he  had 
lived  in  the  abundant  freedom  of  his  opportunities. 
He  fell  in  love  at  the  same  time  that  I  did  with  Alice 
Jamison.  You  have  seen  your  mother's  picture,  but 
that  gives  you  little  idea  of  her  beauty  in  girlhood." 

"I  have  always  thought  her  beautiful!"  Jack 
exclaimed  spontaneously. 

"Yes.  I  am  glad.  She  always  was  beautiful  to 
me;  but  I  like  best  to  think  of  her  before  she  turned 
against  me.  I  like  to  think  of  her  as  she  was  in  the 
days  of  our  courtship.  Fortune  favored  me  instead 
of  Jasper  Ewold.  I  can  well  understand  the  blow  it 
was  to  him,  that  she  should  take  the  storekeeper, 
the  man  without  learning,  the  man  without  family, 
as  people  supposed  then,  when  he  thought  that  she 
belonged  entirely  to  his  world.  But  his  enmity  there- 
after I  can  only  explain  by  his  wounded  pride;  by  a 
mortal  defeat  for  one  used  to  having  his  way,  for  one 
who  had  never  known  discipline.  Your  mother  and 
I  were  very  happy  for  a  time.  I  thought  that  she 


A  CRISIS  IN  THE  WINGFIELD  LIBRARY    321 

loved  me  and  had  chosen  me  because  I  was  a  man 
of  purpose,  while  Jasper  Ewold  was  not." 

John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  spoke  deliberately,  measuring 
his  thought  before  he  put  it  into  words,  as  if  he  were 
trying  to  set  himself  apart  as  one  figure  in  a  drama 
while  he  aimed  to  do  exact  justice  to  the  others. 

"  It  was  soon  after  you  were  born  that  your  mother's 
attitude  changed.  She  was,  as  you  know,  super- 
sensitive,  and  whatever  her  grievances  were  she  kept 
them  to  herself.  My  immersion  in  my  affairs  was 
such  that  I  could  not  be  as  attentive  to  her  as  I  ought 
to  have  been.  Sometimes  I  thought  that  the  adver- 
tisement with  our  name  in  big  letters  in  every  morn- 
ing paper  might  be  offensive  to  her;  again,  that  she 
missed  in  me  the  education  I  had  had  to  forfeit  in 
youth,  and  that  my  affection  could  hardly  take  its 
place.  I  know  that  Jasper  Ewold  saw  her  occasion- 
ally, and  in  his  impulse  I  know  that  he  said  things 
about  me  that  were  untrue.  But  that  I  pass  over. 
In  his  place  I,  too,  might  have  been  bitter. 

"The  best  explanation  I  can  find  of  your  mother's 
change  toward  me  is  one  that  belongs  in  the  domain 
of  psychology  and  pathology.  She  suffered  a  great 
deal  at  your  birth  and  she  never  regained  her  former 
strength.  When  she  rose  from  her  bed  it  was  with  a 
shadow  over  her  mind.  I  saw  that  she  was  unhappy 
and  nervous  in  my  presence.  Indeed,  I  had  at  times 
to  face  the  awful  sensation  of  feeling  that  I  was  actually 
repugnant  to  her.  She  was  especially  irritable  if  I 
kissed  or  fondled  you.  She  dropped  all  her  friends; 
she  never  made  calls;  she  refused  to  see  callers.  I 
consulted  specialists  and  all  the  satisfaction  I  had 
was  that  she  was  of  a  peculiarly  high-strung  nature 


322  OVER  THE  PASS 

and  that  in  certain  phases  of  melancholia,  where  there 
is  no  complete  mental  and  physical  breakdown,  the 
patient  turns  on  the  one  whom  she  would  hold  nearest 
and  dearest  if  she  were  normal.  The  child  that  had 
taken  her  strength  became  the  virtual  passion  of  her 
worship,  which  she  would  share  with  no  one. 

"When  she  proposed  to  go  to  Europe  for  a  rest, 
taking  you  with  her,  I  welcomed  the  idea.  I  rejoiced 
in  the  hope  that  the  doctors  held  out  that  she  would 
come  back  well,  and  I  ventured  to  believe  in  a  happy 
future,  with  you  as  our  common  object  of  love  and 
care.  But  she  never  returned,  as  you  know;  and  she 
only  wrote  me  once,  a  wild  sort  of  letter  about  what  a 
beautiful  boy  you  were  and  that  she  had  you  and  I 
had  the  store  and  I  was  never  to  send  her  any  more 
remittances. 

"I  made  a  number  of  trips  to  Europe.  I  could  not 
go  frequently,  because  in  those  days,  Jack,  I  was  a 
heavy  borrower  of  money  in  the  expansion  of  my  busi- 
ness, and  only  one  who  has  built  up  a  great  business 
can  understand  how,  in  the  earlier  and  more  uncer- 
tain period  of  our  banking  credits,  the  absence  of 
personal  attention  in  any  sudden  crisis  might  throw 
you  on  the  rocks.  Naturally,  when  I  went  I  wrote 
to  Alice  that  I  was  coming;  but  I  always  found  that 
she  had  gone  and  left  no  address  for  forwarding  mail 
from  the  Credit  Lyonnais.  Once  when  I  went  with- 
out writing  she  eluded  me,  and  the  second  time  I 
found  that  she  had  a  cottage  at  Versailles.  That, 
as  you  know,  was  the  only  occasion  when  I  ever  saw 
you  or  her  until  I  came  to  bring  you  home  after  her 
sudden  death." 

"Yes,"  Jack  whispered  starkly.     "That  day  I  had 


A  CRISIS  IN  THE  WINGFIELD  LIBRARY    323 

left  her  as  well  as  usual  and  came  home  to  find  her 
lying  still  and  white  on  a  couch,  her  book  fallen  out 
of  her  hand  onto  the  floor  and — "  the  words  choked 
in  his  throat. 

"And  the  stranger,  your  father,  who  came  for  you, 
seemed  very  hard  and  forbidding  to  you!" 

"Yes,"  Jack  managed  to  say. 

"But,  Jack,  when  my  steps  sounded  so  firm  the 
day  I  left  you  at  Versailles  it  was  the  firmness  of  force 
of  will  fighting  to  accept  the  inevitable.  For  I  had 
seen  your  face.  It  was  like  mine,  and  yet  I  had  to 
give  you  up!  I  had  to  give  you  up  knowing  that  I 
might  not  see  you  again;  knowing  that  this  tragic, 
incomprehensible  fatality  had  set  you  against  me; 
knowing  that  any  further  efforts  to  see  you  meant 
only  pain  for  Alice  and  for  me.  Whatever  happiness 
she  knew  came  from  you,  and  that  she  should  have. 
And  remember,  Jack,  that  out  of  all  this  tragedy  I, 
too,  had  my  point  of  view.  I  had  my  moments  of 
reproach  against  fate;  my  moments  of  bitterness  and 
anger;  my  moments  when  I  set  all  my  mind  with 
volcanic  energy  into  my  affairs  in  order  to  forget  my 
misfortune.  I  had  to  build  for  the  sake  of  building. 
Perhaps  that  hardened  me. 

"  When  you  came  home  I  saw  that  you  were  mine  in 
blood  but  not  mine  in  heart.  All  your  training  had 
been  foreign,  all  of  estrangement  from  the  business 
and  the  ways  of  the  home-country;  which  you  could 
not  help,  I  could  not  help,  nothing  now  could  help. 
But,  after  all,  I  had  been  building  for  you;  that  was 
my  new  solace.  I  wanted  you  to  be  equal  to  what 
was  coming  to  you,  and  that  change  meant  discipline. 
To  be  frank  with  you,  as  you  have  been  with  me, 
you  were  sickly,  hectic,  dreamy;  and  when  word  came 


324  OVER  THE  PASS 

that  you  must  go  to  the  desert  if  your  life  were  to  be 
saved — well,  Jack,  I  had  to  put  affection  aside  and 
consider  this  blow  for  what  it  was,  and  think  not  of 
kind  words  but  of  what  was  best  for  you  and  your 
future.  I  knew  that  my  duty  to  you  and  your  duty 
to  yourself  was  to  see  you  become  strong,  and  for  your 
sake  you  must  not  return  until  you  were  strong. 

"Now,  as  for  the  scene  in  the  drawing-room  the 
other  day:  I  could  not  forget  what  Jasper  Ewold 
had  said  of  me.  That  was  one  thing.  Another  was 
that  I  had  detected  his  influence  over  you;  an  influence 
against  the  purpose  and  steadiness  that  I  was  trying 
to  inculcate  in  you;  and  suddenly  coming  upon  him 
in  my  own  house,  in  view  of  his  enmity  and  the  way 
in  which  he  had  spoken  about  me,  I  was  naturally 
startled  and  indignant  and  withdrew  to  avoid  a  scene. 
That  is  all,  Jack.  I  have  answered  your  questions 
to  the  best  of  my  knowledge.  If  others  occur  to  you 
I  will  try  my  best  to  answer  them,  too;"  and  the  father 
seemed  ready  to  submit  every  recess  of  his  mind  to 
the  son's  inquisition. 

"You  have  answered  everything,"  said  Jack; 
"everything — fairly,  considerately,  generously." 

There  was  a  flash  of  triumph  in  the  father's  eyes. 
Slowly  he  rose  and  stood  with  his  finger-ends  caressing 
the  blotting-pad.  Jack  rose  at  the  same  time,  his 
movement  automatic,  instinctively  in  sympathy  with 
his  father's.  His  head  was  bowed  under  stress  of  the 
emotion,  incapable  of  translation  into  language,  which 
transfixed  him.  It  had  all  been  made  clear,  this  thing 
that  no  one  could  help.  His  feeling  toward  his  mother 
could  never  change;  but  penetrating  to  the  depths  in 
which  it  had  been  held  sacred  was  a  new  feeling.  The 
pain  that  had  brought  him  into  the  world  had  brought 


A  CRISIS  IN  THE  WINGFIELD  LIBRARY    325 

misery  to  the  authors  of  his  being.  There  was  no 
phantom  except  the  breath  of  life  in  his  nostrils  which 
they  had  given  him. 

Watchfully,  respecting  the  son's  silence,  the  father's 
lips  tightened,  his  chin  went  out  slightly  and  his  brows 
drew  together  in  a  way  that  indicated  that  he  did  not 
consider  the  battle  over.  At  length,  Jack's  head  came 
up  and  his  face  had  the  strength  of  a  youthful  replica 
of  the  ancestor's,  radiant  in  gratitude,  and  in  his  eyes 
for  the  first  time,  in  looking  into  his  father's,  were 
trust  and  affection.  There  was  no  word,  no  other 
demonstration  except  the  steady,  liquid  look  that 
spoke  the  birth  of  a  great,  understanding  comrade- 
ship. The  father  fed  his  hunger  for  possession,  which 
had  been  irresistibly  growing  in  him  for  the  last  two 
months,  on  that  look.  He  saw  his  son's  strength  as 
something  that  had  at  last  become  malleable;  and  this 
was  the  moment  when  the  metal  was  at  white  heat, 
ready  for  knowing  turns  with  the  pincers  and  knowing 
blows  of  the  hammer. 

The  message  from  Jim  Galway  was  still  on  the 
table  where  the  father  had  laid  it  after  reading.  Now 
he  pressed  his  fingers  on  it  so  hard  that  the  nails  became 
a  row  of  red  spots. 

"And  the  telegram,  Jack?"  he  asked. 

Jack  stared  at  the  yellow  slip  of  paper  as  the  symbol 
of  problems  that  reappeared  with  burning  acuteness 
in  his  mind.  It  smiled  at  him  in  the  satire  of  John 
Prather  triumphing  in  Little  Rivers.  It  visualized 
pictures  of  lean  ranchers  who  had  brought  him  flowers 
in  the  days  of  his  convalescence;  of  children  gathered 
around  him  on  the  steps  of  his  bungalow;  of  all  the 
friendly  faces  brimming  good-will  into  his  own  on  the 
day  of  his  departure;  of  a  patch  of  green  in  desert 


326  OVER  THE  PASS 

loneliness,  with  a  summons  to  arms  to  defend  its 
arteries  of  life. 

"They  want  me  to  help — I  half  promised!"  he  said. 

"Yes.  And  just  how  can  you  help?"  asked  his 
father,  gently. 

"Why,  that  is  not  quite  clear  yet.  But  a  stranger, 
they  made  me  one  of  themselves.  They  say  that 
they  need  me.  And,  father,  that  thrilled  me.  It 
thrilled  the  idler  to  find  that  there  was  some  place 
where  he  could  be  of  service;  that  there  was  some  one 
definite  thing  that  others  thought  he  could  do  well!" 

The  father  proceeded  cautiously,  reasonably,  with 
his  questions,  as  one  who  seeks  for  light  for  its  own 
sake.  Jack's  answers  were  luminously  frank.  For 
there  was  always  to  be  truth  between  them  in  their  new 
fellowship,  unfettered  by  hopes  or  vagaries. 

"You  could  help  with  your  knowledge  of  law? 
With  political  influence?  Help  these  men  seasoned 
by  experience  in  land  disputes  in  that  region?" 

"No!" 

"And  would  Jasper  Ewold,  whom  I  understand  is 
the  head  and  founder  of  the  community,  want  you 
to  come?  Has  he  asked  you?"  the  father  continued, 
drawing  in  the  web  of  logic. 

"On  the  contrary,  he  would  not  want  me." 

"And  Miss  Ewold?    Would  she  want  you?" 

There  Jack  hesitated.  When  he  spoke,  however, 
it  was  to  admit  the  fact  that  was  stabbing  him. 

"  No,  she  would  not.  She  has  dismissed  me.  But — 
but  I  half  promised,"  he  added,  his  features  setting 
firmly  as  they  had  after  Leddy  had  fired  at  him.  "  It 
seems  like  duty,  unavoidable. " 

The  metal  was  cooling,  losing  its  malleability,  and 
the  father  proceeded  to  thrust  it  back  into  the  furnace. 


A  CRISIS  IN  THE  WINGFIELD  LIBRARY    327 

"Then,  I  take  it  that  your  value  to  Little  Rivers 
is  your  cool  hand  with  a  gun,"  he  said,  "and  the  sum- 
mons is  to  uncertainties  which  may  lead  to  something 
worse  than  a  duel.  You  are  asked  to  come  because 
you  can  fight.  Do  you  want  to  go  for  that?  To  go 
to  let  the  devil,  as  you  call  it,  out  of  you?  " 

Now  the  metal  was  soft  with  the  heat  of  the  shame 
of  the  moment  when  Jack  had  called  to  Leddy,  "I 
am  going  to  kill  you!"  and  of  the  moment  when  he 
saw  Pedro  Nogales's  limp,  broken  arm  and  ghastly  face. 

"No,  no!"  Jack  gasped.  "I  want  no  fight!  I 
never  want  to  draw  a  bead  on  a  man  again!  I  never 
want  to  have  a  revolver  in  my  hand  again!" 

He  was  shuddering,  half  leaning  against  the  desk 
for  support.  His  father  waited  in  observant  com- 
prehension. Convulsively,  Jack  straightened  with  des- 
peration and  all  the  impassioned  pleading  to  Mary 
on  the  pass  was  in  his  eyes. 

"But  the  thing  that  I  cannot  help — the  transcend- 
ent thing,  not  of  logic,  not  of  Little  Rivers'  difficulties 
— how  am  I  to  give  that  up?"  he  cried. 

"Miss  Ewold,  you  mean?" 

"Yes!" 

"Jack,  I  know!  I  understand!  Who  should  under- 
stand if  not  I?"  The  father  drew  Jack's  hand  into 
his  own,  and  the  fluid  force  of  his  desire  for  mastery 
was  flowing  out  from  his  finger-ends  into  the  son's 
fibres,  which  were  receptively  sensitive  to  the  caress. 
"I  know  what  it  is  when  the  woman  you  love  dis- 
misses you !  You  have  her  to  think  of  as  well  as  your- 
self. Your  own  wish  may  not  be  lord.  You  may 
not  win  that  which  will  not  be  won" — how  well  he 
knew  that! — "either  by  protest,  by  persistence,  or 


328  OVER  THE  PASS 

by  labor.  You  are  dealing  with  the  tender  and  intan- 
gible; with  feminine  temperament,  Jack.  And,  Jack, 
it  is  wise  for  you,  isn't  it,  to  bear  in  mind  that  your 
life  has  not  been  normal?  With  the  switch  from 
desert  to  city  life  homesickness  has  crept  over  you. 
From  to-night  things  will  not  be  so  strange,  will  they? 
But  if  you  wish  a  change,  go  to  Europe — yes,  go, 
though  I  cannot  bear  to  think  of  losing  you  the  very 
moment  that  we  have  come  to  know  each  other;  when 
the  past  is  clear  and  amends  are  at  hand. 

"And,  Jack,  if  your  mother  were  here  with  us  and 
were  herself,  would  she  want  you  to  go  back  to  take 
up  a  rifle  instead  of  your  work  at  my  side?  I  do  not 
pretend  to  understand  Jasper  Ewold's  or  Mary  Ewold's 
thoughts.  She  has  preferred  to  make  another  genera- 
tion's ill-feeling  her  own  in  a  thing  that  concerns  her 
life  alone.  She  has  seen  enough  of  you  to  know  her 
mind.  For,  from  all  I  hear,  you  have  not  been  a 
faint-hearted  lover.  Is  it  fair  to  her  to  follow  her 
back  to  the  desert?  Is  it  the  courage  of  self-denial,  of 
control  of  impulse  on  your  part?  Would  your  mother 
want  you  to  persist  in  a  veritable  conquest  by  force 
of  your  will,  whose  strength  you  hardly  realize, 
against  Mary  Ewold's  sensibilities?  And  if  you 
broke  down  her  will,  if  you  won,  would  there  be  hap- 
piness for  you  and  for  her?  Jack,  wait!  If  she  cares 
for  you,  if  there  is  any  germ  of  love  for  you  in  her,  it 
will  grow  of  itself.  You  cannot  force  it  into  blossom. 
Come,  Jack,  am  I  not  right?" 

Jack's  hands  lay  cold  and  limp  in  his  father's;  so 
limp  that  it  seemed  only  a  case  of  leading,  now.  Yet 
there  was  always  the  uncertain  in  the  boy;  the  uncer- 
tain hovering  under  that  face  of  ashes  that  the  father 


A  CRISIS  IN  THE  WINGFIELD  LIBRARY    329 

was  so  keenly  watching;  a  face  so  clearly  revealing 
the  throes  of  a  struggle  that  sent  cold  little  shivers 
into  his  father's  warm  grasp.  Jack's  eyes  were  look- 
ing into  the  distance  through  a  mist.  He  dropped 
the  lids  as  if  he  wanted  darkness  in  which  to  think. 
When  he  raised  them  it  was  to  look  in  his  father's 
eyes  firmly.  There  was  a  half  sob,  as  if  this  senti- 
mentalist, this  Sefior  Don't  Care,  had  wrung  determi- 
nation from  a  precipice  edge,  even  as  Mary  Ewold 
had.  He  gripped  his  father's  hands  strongly  and 
lifted  them  on  a  level  with  his  breast. 

"You  have  been  very  fine,  father!  I  want  you 
to  be  patient  and  go  on  helping  me.  The  trail  is  a 
rough  one,  but  straight,  now.  I — I'm  too  brimming 
full  to  talk!"  And  blindly  he  left  the  library. 

When  the  door  closed,  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  seized 
the  telegram,  rolled  it  up  with  a  glad,  fierce  energy 
and  threw  it  into  the  waste-basket.  His  head  went 
up;  his  eyes  became  points  of  sharp  flame;  his  lips 
parted  in  a  smile  of  relief  and  triumph  and  came 
together  in  a  straight  line  before  he  sank  down  in  his 
chair  in  a  collapse  of  exhaustion.  After  a  while  he 
had  the  decanter  brought  in;  he  gulped  a  glass  of 
brandy,  lighted  another  cigar,  and,  swinging  around, 
fell  back  at  ease,  his  mind  a  blank  except  for  one 
glowing  thought: 

"He  will  not  go!  He  will  give  up  the  girl!  He  is 
to  be  all  mine!" 

It  is  said  that  the  best  actors  never  go  on  the  stage. 
They  play  real  parts  in  private  life,  making  their  own 
lines  as  they  watch  the  other  players.  One  of  this 
company,  surveying  the  glint  of  his  bookcases,  was 
satisfied  with  the  greatest  effort  of  his  life  in  his  library. 


XXXIII 

PRATHER  SEES  THE  PORTRAIT 

It  did  not  occur  to  Jack  to  question  a  word  of  the 
narrative  that  had  reduced  a  dismal  enigma  to  lumi- 
nous, connected  facts.  With  the  swift  processes  of 
reason  and  the  promptness  of  decision  of  which  he 
was  capable  on  occasion,  he  had  made  up  his  mind 
as  to  his  future  even  as  he  ascended  the  stairs  to  his 
room.  The  poignancy  of  his  father's  appeal  had 
struck  to  the  bed-rock  of  his  affection  and  his  con- 
science, revealing  duty  not  as  a  thing  that  you  set  for 
yourself,  but  which  circumstances  set  for  you. 

Never  before  had  he  realized  how  hopelessly  he 
had  been  a  dreamer.  Firio,  P.  D.,  Wrath  of  God, 
and  Jag  Ear  became  the  fantastic  memory  of  another 
incarnation.  His  devil  should  never  again  rejoice 
in  having  his  finger  on  a  trigger  or  send  him  off 
an  easy  traveller  in  search  of  gorgeous  sunrises. 
His  devil  should  be  transformed  into  a  backbone  of 
unremitting  apprenticeship  in  loving  service  for  the 
father  who  had  built  for  him  in  love.  Though  his 
head  split,  he  would  master  every  detail  of  the  busi- 
ness. And  when  Jack  stepped  into  the  Rubicon  he 
did  not  splash  around  or  look  back.  He  went  right 
over  to  the  new  country  on  the  other  bank. 

But  these  were  certain  persons  whom  he  must 
inform  of  the  crossing.  First,  he  wrote  a  telegram 
to  Jim  Galway:  "Sorry,  but  overwhelming  duty 


PRATHER  SEES  THE  PORTRAIT       331 

here  will  not  permit.  Luck  and  my  prayers  with 
you."  Then  to  Firio  a  letter,  which  did  not  come 
quite  so  easily:  "You  see  by  now  that  you  are  mis- 
taken, Firio.  I  am  not  coming  back.  Make  the 
most  of  the  ranch — your  ranch — that  you  can. "  The 
brevity,  he  told  himself,  was  in  keeping  with  Firio's 
own  style.  Besides,  anything  more  at  length  would 
have  opened  up  an  avenue  of  recollections  which 
properly  belonged  to  oblivion. 

And  Mary?  Yes,  he  would  write  to  her,  too.  He 
would  cut  the  last  strand  with  the  West.  That  was 
best.  That  was  the  part  of  his  new  courage  of  self- 
denial  stripping  itself  of  every  trammeling  association 
of  sentiment.  Other  men  had  given  up  the  women 
of  their  choice;  and  he  could  never  be  the  man  of  this 
woman's  choice.  Somehow,  his  father's  talk  had 
made  him  realize  an  inevitable  outcome  which  had 
better  be  met  and  mastered  in  present  fortitude, 
rather  than  after  prolonged  years  of  fruitless  hope 
centering  two  thousand  miles  away.  He  started  a 
dozen  letters  to  Mary,  meaning  each  to  be  a  fitting 
envoi  to  their  comradeship  and  a  song  of  good  wishes. 
Each  one  he  wrote  in  the  haste  of  having  the  task 
quickly  over,  only  to  throw  away  what  he  had  written 
when  he  read  it.  The  touch  that  he  wanted  would 
not  come.  He  was  simply  flashing  out  a  few  of  a 
thousand  disconnected  thoughts  that  ran  away  inco- 
herently with  his  pen. 

But  wasn't  any  letter,  any  communication  of  any 
kind,  superfluous?  Wasn't  it  the  folly  of  weak  and 
stupid  stubbornness?  She  had  spoken  her  final  word 
in  their  relations  at  the  hotel  door.  There  was  no 
Little  Rivers;  there  was  no  Mary;  there  was  nothing 


332  OVER  THE  PASS 

but  the  store.  To  enforce  this  fiat  he  had  only  to 
send  the  wire  to  Jim  and  post  the  letter  to  Firio. 
This  he  would  do  himself.  A  stroll  would  give  him 
fresh  air.  It  was  just  what  he  needed  after  all  he 
had  been  through  that  evening;  and  he  would  see  the 
streets  not  with  any  memory  of  the  old  restlessness 
when  he  and  his  father  were  strangers,  but  kindly, 
as  the  symbol  of  the  future. 

His  room  was  on  the  second  floor.  As  he  left  it, 
he  heard  the  door-bell  ring,  its  electric  titter  very 
clear  in  the  silence  of  the  house.  No  doubt  it  meant 
a  telegram  for  his  father.  At  the  turn  of  the  stairs 
on  the  first  floor  he  saw  the  back  of  the  butler  be- 
fore the  open  door.  Evidently  it  was  not  a  matter 
of  a  telegram,  but  of  some  late  caller.  Jack  paused 
in  the  darkness  of  the  landing,  partly  to  avoid  the 
bother  of  having  to  meet  anyone  and  partly  arrested 
by  the  manner  of  the  butler,  who  seemed  to  be  startled 
and  in  doubt  about  admitting  a  stranger  at  that  hour. 
Indistinctly,  Jack  could  hear  the  caller's  voice.  The 
tone  was  familiar  in  a  peculiar  quality,  which  he  tried 
to  associate  with  a  voice  that  he  had  heard  frequently. 
The  butler,  apparently  satisfied  with  the  caller's 
appearance,  or,  ar  least,  with  his  own  ability  to  take 
care  of  a  single  intruder,  stepped  back,  with  a  word 
to  come  in.  Then,  out  of  the  obscurity  of  the  vesti- 
bule, appeared  the  pale  face  of  John  Prather.  Jack 
withdrew  farther  into  the  shadows  instinctively,  as 
if  he  had  seen  a  ghost;  as  if,  indeed,  he  were  in  fear  of 
ghosts. 

"I  will  take  your  card  to  Mr.  Wingfield,"  said  the 
butler. 

Prather  made  a  perfunctory  movement  as  if  for  a 


PRATHER  SEES  THE  PORTRAIT       333 

card-case,  but  apparently  changed  his  mind  under 
the  prompting  suggestion  that  it  was  superfluous. 

"My  name  is  John  Prather,"  he  announced.  "Mr. 
Wingfield  knows  who  I  am  and  I  am  quite  sure  that 
he  will  see  me." 

While  the  butler,  after  rapping  cautiously,  went 
into  the  library  with  the  message,  John  Prather  stood 
half  smiling  to  himself  as  he  looked  around  the  hall. 
The  effect  seemed  to  please  him  in  a  contemplative 
fashion,  for  he  rubbed  the  palms  of  his  hands  together, 
as  he  had  in  his  survey  of  the  diamond  counters.  He 
was  serenity  itself  as  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  burst  out 
of  the  library,  his  face  hard-set. 

"I  thought  you  were  going  this  evening!"  he  ex- 
claimed. "By  what  right  do  you  come  here?" 

He  placed  himself  directly  in  front  of  Prather, 
thus  hiding  Prather's  figure,  but  not  his  face,  which 
Jack  could  see  was  not  in  the  least  disturbed  by  the 
other's  temper. 

"Oh,  no!  The  early  morning  train  has  the  connec- 
tions I  want  for  Arizona,"  he  answered  casually,  as 
if  he  were  far  from  being  in  any  hurry.  "  I  was  taking 
a  walk,  and  happening  to  turn  into  Madison  Avenue 
I  found  myself  in  front  of  the  house.  It  occurred  to 
me  what  a  lot  I  had  heard  about  that  ancestor,  and 
seeing  a  light  in  the  library,  and  considering  how  late 
it  was,  I  thought  I  might  have  a  glimpse  of  him  without 
inconveniencing  any  other  member  of  the  family. 
Do  you  mind?" 

He  put  the  question  with  an  inflection  that  was  at 
once  engaging  and  confident. 

"Mind!"  gasped  John  Wingfield,  Sr. 

"I  am  sure  you  do  not!"  Prather  returned.     Now 


334  OVER  THE  PASS 

a  certain  deference  and  a  certain  pungency  of  satire 
ran  together  in  his  tone,  the  mixture  being  nicely  and 
pleasurably  controlled.  "  Is  it  in  there,  in  the  drawing- 
room?" 

"And  then  what  else?  Where  do  you  mean  to 
end?  I  thought  that " 

"Nothing  else,"  Prather  interrupted  reassuringly. 
"Everything  is  settled,  of  course.  This  is  sort  of  a 
farewell  privilege." 

"Yes,  in  there!"  snapped  John  Wingfield,  Sr.  "It's 
the  picture  on  the  other  side  of  the  mantel.  I  will 
wait  here — and  be  quick,  quick,  I  tell  you!  I  want 
you  out  of  this  house!  I've  done  enough!  I " 

"Thanks!    It  is  very  good-natured  of  you!" 

John  Prather  passed  leisurely  into  the  drawing- 
room  and  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  stood  guard  by  the 
door,  his  hand  gripping  the  heavy  portieres  for  sup- 
port, while  his  gaze  was  steadily  fixed  at  a  point  in 
the  turn  of  the  stairs  just  below  where  Jack  was  ob- 
scured in  the  shadow.  His  face  was  drawn  and 
ashen  against  the  deep  red  of  the  hangings,  and  tor- 
ment and  fear  and  defiance,  now  one  and  then  the 
other,  were  in  ascendency  over  the  features  which 
Jack  had  always  associated  with  composed  and  un- 
changing mastery  until  he  had  seen  them  illumined 
with  affection  only  an  hour  before.  And  the  father 
had  said  that  he  had  never  met  or  heard  of  John 
Prather!  The  father  had  said  so  quietly,  decidedly, 
without  hesitation!  This  one  thought  kept  repeating 
itself  to  Jack's  stunned  brain  as  he  leaned  against 
the  wall  limp  from  a  blow  that  admits  of  no  aggressive 
return. 

"The  ancestor  certainly  must  have  been  a  snappy 


PRATHER  SEES  THE  PORTRAIT      335 

member  of  society  in  his  time!  It  has  been  delight- 
ful to  have  a  look  at  him, "  said  John  Prather,  as  he 
came  out  of  the  drawing-room. 

He  paused  as  he  spoke.  He  was  still  smiling.  The 
mole  on  his  cheek  was  toward  the  stairway;  and  it 
seemed  to  heighten  the  satire  of  his  smile.  The  faces 
of  the  young  man  and  the  old  man  were  close  together 
and  they  were  standing  in  much  the  same  attitude, 
giving  an  effect  of  likeness  in  more  than  physiognomy. 
That  note  of  John  Prather's  voice  that  had  sounded 
so  familiar  to  Jack  was  a  note  in  the  father's  voice 
when  he  was  particularly  suave. 

"This  is  the  end — that  is  the  understanding — the 
end?"  demanded  John  Wingfield,  Sr. 

"Oh,  quite!"  John  Prather  answered  easily,  moving 
toward  the  door.  He  did  not  offer  his  hand,  nor  did 
John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  offer  to  take  it.  But  as  he  went 
out  he  said,  his  smile  broadening:  "I  hope  that 
Jack  makes  a  success  with  the  store,  though  he  never 
could  run  it  as  well  as  I  could.  Good-by!" 

"Good-by!"  gasped  John  Wingfield,  Sr. 

He  wheeled  around  distractedly  and  stood  still, 
his  head  bowed,  his  fingers  working  nervously  before 
his  hands  parted  in  a  shrugging,  outspread  gesture  of 
relief;  then,  his  head  rising,  his  body  stiffening,  once 
more  his  arbitrary  self,  he  started  up  the  stairs  with 
the  firm  yet  elastic  step  with  which  he  mounted  the 
flights  of  the  store. 

If  Jack  remained  where  he  was  they  would  meet. 
What  purpose  in  questions  now?  The  answer  to  all 
might  be  as  false  as  to  one.  He  was  no  more  in  a 
mood  to  trust  himself  with  a  word  to  his  father 
than  he  had  been  to  trust  himself  with  a  word  to 


336  OVER  THE  PASS 

John  Prather.  He  dropped  ba^,  into  the  darkness 
of  the  dining-room  and  sank  into  a  chair.  When 
a  bedroom  door  upstairs  had  closed  softly  he  was 
sequestered  in  silence  with  his  thoughts. 

His  own  father  had  lied  to  him!  Lied  blandly! 
Lied  with  eyes  limpid  with  appeal!  And  the  supreme 
commandment  on  which  his  mother  had  ever  insisted 
was  truth.  The  least  infraction  of  it  she  would  not 
forgive;  it  was  the  only  thing  for  which  she  had  ever 
punished  him.  He  recalled  the  one  occasion  when 
she  had  seemed  harsh  and  merciless,  as  she  said: 

"A  lie  fouls  the  mouth  of  the  one  who  utters  it, 
Jack.  A  lie  may  torture  and  kill.  It  may  ruin  a 
life.  It  is  the  weapon  of  the  coward — and  never 
be  a  coward,  Jack,  never  be  afraid!" 

At  the  New  England  preparatory  school  which  he 
had  attended  after  he  came  home,  a  lie  was  the  abomi- 
nation on  which  the  discipline  of  student  comradeship 
laid  a  scourge.  Out  on  the  desert,  where  the  trails 
run  straight  and  the  battle  of  life  is  waged  straight 
against  thirst  and  fatigue  and  distance,  men  spoke 
straight. 

And  nothing  had  been  explained,  after  all!  The 
phantom  was  back,  definite  of  form  and  smiling  in 
irony.  For  it  had  a  face,  now,  the  face  of  John  Prather ! 
How  was  he  connected  with  the  story  of  the  mother? 
the  father?  the  Doge? 

Then,  like  a  shaft  of  light  across  memory,  came  the 
recollection  of  a  thing  that  had  been  so  negligible  to 
Jack  at  the  time.  It  was  Dr.  Bennington's  first 
question  in  Jack's  living-room;  a  question  so  carelessly 
put  and  so  dissociated  from  the  object  of  his  visit! 
Jack  remembered  Dr.  Bennington's  curious  glance 


PRATHER  SEES  THE  PORTRAIT      337 

through  his  eyebrows  as  he  asked  him  if  he  had  met 
John  Prather.  And  Dr.  Bennington  had  brought 
Jack  into  the  world!  He  knew  the  family  history! 
The  Jack  that  now  rose  from  the  chair  was  a  Jack  of 
action,  driven  by  the  scourge  of  John  Prather's  smile 
into  obsession  with  the  one  idea  which  was  crying: 
"  I  will  know !  I  will  know ! " 

Downstairs  in  the  hall  he  learned  over  the  telephone 
that  Dr.  Bennington  had  just  gone  out  on  a  call.  It 
would  be  possible  to  see  him  yet  to-night!  An  hour 
later,  as  the  doctor  entered  his  reception-room  he  was 
startled  by  a  pacing  figure  in  the  throes  of  impatience, 
who  turned  on  him  without  formality  in  an  outburst: 

"Dr.  Bennington,  you  asked  me  in  Little  Rivers 
if  I  had  ever  met  John  Prather.  I  have  met  him! 
Who  is  he?  What  is  he  to  me?" 

The  doctor's  suavity  was  thrown  off  its  balance, 
but  he  did  not  lose  his  presence  of  mind.  He  was  too 
old  a  hand  at  his  profession,  too  capable,  for  that. 

"I  refuse  to  answer!"  he  said  quickly  and  decisively. 

"Then  you  do  know!"  Jack  took  a  step  toward 
the  doctor.  His  weight  was  on  the  ball  of  his  foot; 
his  eyes  had  the  fire  of  a  command  that  was  not  to  be 
resisted. 

"Heavens!  How  like  the  ancestor!"  the  doctor 
exclaimed  involuntarily. 

"Then  you  do  know!  Who  is  he?  What  is  he 
to  me?" 

It  seemed  as  if  the  ceiling  were  about  to  crack.  The 
doctor  looked  away  to  avoid  the  bore  of  Jack's  unre- 
lenting scrutiny.  He  took  a  turn  up  and  down,  rapidly, 
nervously,  his  fingers  pressed  in  against  the  palms 
and  the  muscles  of  his  forearms  moving  in  the  way 


338  OVER  THE  PASS 

of  one  who  is  trying  to  hold  himself  in  control  by  an 
outward  expression  of  force  against  inward  rebellion. 

"I  dined  with  your  father  to-night!"  he  exclaimed. 
"I  counseled  him  to  tell  you  the  truth!  I  said  that 
if  he  did  not  want  to  tell  it  for  its  own  sake,  as 
policy  it  was  the  only  thing  to  you!  I — I — "  he 
stopped,  facing  Jack  with  a  sort  of  grisly  defiance. 
"Jack,  a  doctor  is  a  confessor  of  men!  He  keeps 
their  secrets!  Good-night!"  And  he  strode  through 
the  office  door,  which  he  closed  behind  him  sharply, 
in  reminder  that  the  interview  was  at  an  end. 

As  Jack  went  down  the  steps  into  the  night,  the  face 
of  John  Prather,  with  a  satirical  turn  to  the  lips,  was 
preceding  him.  Now  he  walked  madly  up  and  down 
and  back  and  forth  across  town  to  the  river  fronts, 
with  panting  energy  of  stride,  as  he  fastened  the 
leash  of  will  on  quivering  nerves.  When  dawn  came 
it  was  the  dawn  of  the  desert  calling  to  a  brain  that 
had  fought  its  way  to  a  lucid  purpose.  It  started  him 
to  the  store  in  the  fervor  of  a  grateful  mission,  while 
a  familiar  greeting  kept  repeating  itself  in  his  ears 
on  the  way: 

"You  won't  forget,  Jack,  about  giving  me  a  chance 
to  come  along  if  you  ever  go  out  West  again,  will  you?  " 

The  question  was  one  in  answer  to  a  promise;  a 
reminder  from  certain  employees  into  whom  he  had 
fused  his  own  spirit  of  enthusiasm  about  dry  wastes 
yielding  abundance. 

"But  you  must  work  very  hard,"  he  had  told  them. 
"Not  until  you  have  callouses  on  your  hands  can  you 
succeed  or  really  know  how  to  enjoy  a  desert  sunrise 
or  sunset.  After  that,  you  will  be  able  to  stand  erect 
and  look  destiny  in  the  face. " 


PRATHER  SEES  THE  PORTRAIT       339 

"No  February  slush!"  Burleigh,  the  fitter,  had 
said.  "No  depending  on  one  man  to  hold  your 
job!" 

"Your  own  boss!  You  own  some  land  and  you 
just  naturally  get  what  you  earn!"  according  to  Joe 
Mathewson. 

"And  from  what  I  can  make  out,"  observed  one 
of  the  automobile  van  drivers  whom  Jack  had  accom- 
panied on  the  suburban  rounds,  "it  requires  about  as 
much  brains  as  running  an  automobile  to  be  what 
you'd  call  a  first-class,  a  number  one  desert  Rube, 
Jack!" 

"Yes,"  Jack  told  him.  "The  process  that  makes 
the  earth  fruitful  is  not  less  complicated  than  a  motor, 
simply  because  it  is  one  of  the  earliest  inventions. 
You  mix  in  nature's  carbureter  light  and  moisture 
with  the  chemical  elements  of  the  soil." 

"I'm  on!"  the  chauffeur  rejoined.  "If  a  man 
works  with  a  plow  instead  of  a  screwdriver,  it  doesn't 
follow  that  his  mind  is  as  vacant  as  a  cow  that  stands 
stockstill  in  the  middle  of  the  road  to  show  you  that 
you  can't  fool  her  into  thinking  that  radiators  are 
good  to  eat." 

In  explaining  the  labor  and  pains  of  orange-grow- 
ing, which  ended  only  with  the  careful  picking  and 
packing,  Jack  would  talk  as  earnestly  as  his  father 
would  about  the  tedious  detail  which  went  into  the 
purchase  and  sale  of  the  articles  in  any  department 
of  the  store.  He  might  not  be  able  to  choose  the  best 
expert  for  the  ribbon  counter,  but  he  had  a  certain 
confidence  that  he  could  tell  the  man  or  the  woman 
who  would  make  good  in  Little  Rivers.  No  manager 
was  more  thorough  in  his  observation  of  clerks  for 


340  OVER  THE  PASS 

promotion  than  Jack  in  observing  would-be  ranchers. 
He  had  given  his  promise  to  one  after  another  of  a 
test  list  of  disciples;  and  at  times  he  had  been  sur- 
prised to  find  how  serious  both  he  and  the  disciples 
were  over  a  matter  that  existed  entirely  on  the  hy- 
pothesis that  he  was  not  going  to  stay  permanently 
in  New  York. 

This  morning  he  was  at  the  store  for  the  last  time, 
arriving  even  before  the  delivery  division,  to  circulate 
the  news  that  he  was  returning  to  Little  Rivers. 
Trouble  was  brewing  out  there,  he  explained,  but 
they  could  depend  on  him.  He  would  make  a  place 
for  them  and  send  word  when  he  was  ready;  and  all 
whom  he  had  marked  as  faithful  were  eager  to  go. 
Thus  he  had  builded  unwittingly  for  another  future 
of  responsibilities  when  he  had  paused  in  the  midst 
of  the  store's  responsibilities  to  tell  stories  of  how  a 
desert  ranch  is  run. 

But  one  disciple  did  not  even  want  to  wait  on  the 
message.  It  was  Peter  Mortimer,  whom  Jack  caught 
on  his  way  to  the  elevator  at  eight,  his  usual  hour,  to 
make  sure  of  having  the  letters  opened  and  syste- 
matically arranged  when  his  employer  should  appear. 

"So  you  are  going,  Jack!  And — and,  Jack,  you 
know?"  asked  Peter  significantly. 

"Yes,  Peter.    And  I  see  that  you  know." 

"I  do,  but  my  word  is  given  not  to  tell." 

Through  that  night's  march  Jack  had  guessed 
enough.  He  had  guessed  his  fill  of  chill  misery,  which 
now  took  the  place  of  the  hunger  of  inquiry.  The 
full  truth  was  speeding  out  to  the  desert.  It  was 
with  John  Prather. 

"Then  I  will  not  press  you,  Peter,"  he  said.     "But, 


PRATHER  SEES  THE  PORTRAIT      341 

Peter,  just  one  question,  if  you  care  to  answer;  was 
it — was  it  this  thing  that  drove  my  mother  into  exile?" 

"Yes,  Jack." 

Then  a  moment's  silence,  with  Peter's  eyes  full  of 
sympathy  and  Jack's  dull  with  pain. 

"And,  Jack,"  Peter  went  on,  "well,  I've  been  so 
long  at  it  that  suddenly,  now  you're  going,  I  feel 
choked  up,  as  if  I  were  about  to  overflow  with  anarchy. 
Jack,  I'm  going  to  give  notice  that  I  will  retire  as 
soon  as  there  is  somebody  to  take  my  place.  I  want 
to  rest  and  not  have  to  keep  trying  to  remember  if 
I  have  forgotten  anything.  I've  saved  up  a  little 
money  and  whatever  happens  out  there,  why,  there'll 
be  some  place  I  can  buy  where  I  can  grow  roses  and 
salads,  as  you  say,  if  nothing  more  profitable,  won't 
there?" 

"Yes,  Peter.  I  know  other  fertile  valleys  besides 
that  of  Little  Rivers,  though  none  that  is  its  equal. 
I  shall  have  a  garden  in  one  of  them  and  you  shall 
have  a  garden  next  to  mine." 

"Then  I  feel  fixed  comfortable  for  life!"  said  Peter, 
with  a  perfectly  wonderful  smile  enlivening  the  wrin- 
kles of  his  old  face,  which  made  Jack  think  once  more 
that  life  was  worth  living. 

Later  in  the  morning,  after  he  had  bought  tickets 
for  Little  Rivers,  Jack  returned  to  the  house.  When 
he  stood  devoutly  before  the  portrait,  whose  "I  give! 
I  give!"  he  now  understood  in  new  depths,  he  thought: 

"I  know  that  you  would  not  want  to  remain  here 
another  hour.  You  would  want  to  go  with  me." 

And  before  the  portrait  on  the  other  side  of  the 
mantel  he  thought,  challengingly  and  affectionately: 

"And  you?    You  were  an  old  devil,  no  doubt,  but 


342  OVER  THE  PASS 

you  would  not  lie!  No,  you  would  not  lie  to  the 
Admiralty  or  to  Elizabeth  even  to  save  your  head! 
Yes,  you  would  want  to  go  with  me,  too!" 

Tenderly  he  assisted  the  butler  to  pack  the  por- 
traits, which  were  put  in  a  cab.  When  Jack  departed 
in  their  company,  this  note  lay  on  the  desk  in  the 
library,  awaiting  John  Wingfield,  Sr.'s  return  that 
evening: 

"FATHER: 

"The  wire  to  Jim  Galway  which  I  enclose  tells  its 
own  story.  It  was  written  after  our  talk.  When 
I  was  going  out  to  send  it  I  saw  John  Prather  and 
you  in  the  hall.  You  said  that  you  knew  nothing  of 
him.  I  overheard  what  passed  between  you  and  him. 
So  I  am  going  back  to  Little  Rivers.  The  only  hope 
for  me  now  is  out  there. 

"I  am  taking  the  portrait  of  my  mother,  because 
it  is  mine.  I  am  taking  the  portrait  of  the  ancestor, 
because  I  cannot  help  it  any  more  than  he  could  help 
taking  a  Spanish  galleon.  That  is  all  I  ask  or  ever 
could  accept  in  the  way  of  an  inheritance. 

"JACK." 


XXXIV 
"JOHN  WINGFIELD,  YOU " 

John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  had  often  made  the  boast  that 
he  never  worried;  that  he  never  took  his  business  to 
bed  with  him.  When  his  head  touched  the  pillow 
there  was  oblivion  until  he  awoke  refreshed  to  greet 
the  problems  left  over  from  yesterday.  Such  a  mind 
must  be  a  reliably  co-ordinated  piece  of  machinery, 
with  a  pendulum  in  place  of  a  heart.  It  is  overawing 
to  average  mortals  who  have  not  the  temerity  to  say 
"Nonsense!"  to  great  egos.  Yet  the  best  adjusted 
clocks  may  have  a  lapse  in  a  powerful  magnetic  storm, 
and  in  an  earthquake  they  might  even  be  tipped  off 
the  shelf,  with  their  metal  parts  rendered  quite  as 
helpless  by  the  fall  as  those  of  a  human  organism  sub- 
ject to  the  constitutional  weaknesses  of  the  flesh. 

It  was  also  John  Wingfield,  Sr.'s  boast  to  himself 
that  he  had  never  been  beaten,  which  average  mortals 
with  the  temerity  to  say  "Nonsense!" — that  most 
equilibratory  of  words — might  have  diagnosed  as  a 
bad  case  of  self-esteem  finding  a  way  to  forget  the 
resented  incidental  reverses  of  success.  Yet,  even 
average  mortals  noted  when  John  Wingfield,  Sr., 
arrived  late  at  the  store  the  morning  after  Jack's 
departure  for  the  West  that  he  had  not  slept  well. 
His  haggardness  suggested  that  for  once  the  push- 
button to  the  switch  of  oblivion  had  failed  him.  The 
smile  of  satisfied  power  was  lacking.  In  the  words 
.343 


344  OVER  THE  PASS 

of  the  elevator  boy,  impersonal  observer  and  swinger 
of  doors,  "I  never  seen  the  old  man  like  that  before!" 

But  the  upward  flight  through  the  streets  of  his 
city,  if  it  did  not  bring  back  the  smile,  brought  back 
the  old  pride  of  ownership  and  domination.  He  still 
had  a  kingdom;  he  was  still  king.  Resentment  rose 
against  the  cause  of  the  miserable  twelve  hours  which 
had  thrown  the  machinery  of  his  being  out  of  order. 
He  passed  the  word  to  himself  that  he  should  sleep 
to-night  and  that  from  this  moment  henceforth  things 
would  be  the  same  as  they  had  been  before  Jack  came 
home.  Yes,  there  was  just  one  reality  for  him.  It 
was  enthroned  in  his  office.  This  morning  was  to  be 
like  any  other  business  morning;  like  thousands  of 
mornings  to  come  in  the  many  years  of  activity  that 
stretched  ahead  of  him. 

"A  little  late,"  he  said,  explaining  his  tardiness 
to  his  secretary;  a  superfluity  of  words  in  which  he 
would  not  ordinarily  have  indulged.  "I  had  some 
things  to  attend  to  on  the  outside. " 

With  customary  quiet  attentiveness,  Mortimer  went 
through  the  mail  with  his  employer,  who  was  fre- 
quently reassuring  himself  that  his  mind  was  as  clear, 
his  answers  as  sure,  and  his  interest  as  concentrated  as 
usual.  This  task  finished,  Mortimer,  with  his  bundle 
of  letters  and  notes  in  hand,  instead  of  going  out  of 
the  room  when  he  had  passed  around  the  desk,  turned 
and  faced  the  man  whom  he  had  served  for  thirty 
years. 

"Mr.  Wingfield " 

"Well,  Peter?" 

John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  looked  up  sharply,  struck  by 
Mortimer's  tone,  which  seemed  to  come  from  another 


"JOHN  WINGFIELD,  YOU "         345 

man.  In  Mortimer's  eye  was  a  placid,  confident 
light  and  his  stoop  was  less  marked. 

"Mr.  Wingfield,  I  am  getting  on  in  years,  now," 
he  said,  "and  I  have  concluded  to  retire  as  soon  as 
you  have  someone  for  my  place;  the  sooner,  sir,  the 
more  agreeable  to  me." 

"What!  What  put  this  idea  into  your  head?" 
John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  snapped.  Often  of  late  he  had 
thought  that  it  was  time  he  got  a  younger  man  in 
Peter's  place.  But  he  did  not  like  the  initiative  to 
come  from  Peter;  not  on  this  particular  morning. 

"Why,  just  the  notion  that  I  should  like  to  rest. 
Yes,  rest  and  play  a  little,  and  grow  roses  and  salads," 
said  the  old  secretary,  respectfully. 

"Roses  and  salads!  What  in — where  are  you  going 
to  grow  them?" 

There  was  something  so  serene  about  Peter  that 
his  highly  imperious,  poised  employer  found  it  imper- 
tinent, not  to  say  maddening.  Peter  had  a  look  of 
the  freedom  of  desert  distances  in  his  eyes  already. 
A  lieutenant  was  actually  radiating  happiness  in  that 
neutral-toned  sanctum  of  power,  particularly  this 
morning. 

"I  am  going  out  to  Little  Rivers,  or  to  some  place 
that  Jack  finds  for  me,  where  I  am  to  have  a  garden 
and  work — or  maybe  I  better  call  it  potter  around — 
out  of  doors  in  January  and  February,  just  like  it 
was  June." 

Peter  spoke  very  genially,  as  if  he  were  trying  to 
win  a  disciple  on  his  own  account. 

"With  Jack!  Oh!"  gasped  John  Wingfield,  Sr. 
He  struck  his  closed  fist  into  the  palm  of  his  hand 
in  his  favorite  gesture  of  anger,  the  antithesis  of  the 


346  OVER  THE  PASS 

crisp  rubbing  of  the  palms,  which  he  so  rarely  used 
of  late  years.  Rage  was  contrary  to  the  rules  of 
longevity,  exciting  the  heart  and  exerting  pressure 
on  the  artery  walls. 

"Yes,  sir,"  answered  Peter,  pleasantly. 

"Well— yes— well,  Jack  has  decided  to  go  back!" 
Then  there  rose  strongly  in  John  Wingfield,  Sr.'s 
mind  a  suspicion  that  had  been  faintly  signaled  to  his 
keen  observation  of  everything  that  went  on  in  the 
store.  "Are  any  other  employees  going?"  he  de- 
manded. 

"Yes,  sir,  I  think  there  are;  not  immediately,  but 
as  soon  as  he  finds  a  place  for  them." 

"How  many?" 

"I  don't  think  it  is  any  secret.    About  fifty,  sir." 

"Name  some  of  them!" 

"Joe  Mathewson,  that  big  fellow  who  drives  a 
warehouse  truck,  and  Burleigh;"  and  Peter  went  on 
with  those  of  the  test  proof  list  whom  he  knew. 

Every  one  of  them  had  high  standing.  Every  one 
represented  a  value.  While  at  first  John  Wingfield, 
Sr.,  had  decided  savagely  that  Mortimer  should  remain 
at  his  pleasure,  now  his  sense  of  outraged  egoism  took 
an  opposite  turn.  He  could  get  on  without  Mortimer; 
he  could  get  on  if  every  employee  in  the  store  walked 
out.  There  were  more  where  they  came  from  in  a 
city  of  five  millions  population;  and  no  one  in  the 
world  knew  so  well  as  he  how  to  train  them. 

"Very  good,  Peter!"  he  said  rigidly,  as  if  he  were 
making  a  declaration  of  war.  "Fix  up  your  papers 
and  leave  as  soon  as  you  please.  I  will  have  one  of 
the  clerks  take  your  place. " 

"Thank  you.    That  is  very  kind,  Mr.  Wingfield!" 


"JOHN  WINGFIELD,  YOU "        347 

Mortimer  returned,  so  politely,  even  exultantly,  that 
his  aspect  seemed  treasonable. 

John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  tried  to  concentrate  his  atten- 
tion on  some  long  and  important  letters  that  had  been 
left  on  his  desk  for  further  consideration;  but  his  mind 
refused  to  stick  to  the  lines  of  typewriting. 

"This  one  is  a  little  complicated,"  he  thought, 
"I  will  lay  it  aside." 

He  tried  the  second  and  the  third  letters,  with  no 
better  results.  A  tanned  face  and  a  pair  of  broad 
shoulders  kept  appearing  between  him  and  the  paper. 
Again  he  was  thinking  of  Jack,  as  he  had  all  night, 
to  the  exclusion  of  everything  else.  Unquestionably, 
this  son  had  a  lot  of  magnetic  force  in  him;  he  had 
command  of  men.  Why,  he  had  won  fifty  of  the  best 
employees  out  of  sheer  sentiment  to  follow  him  out 
to  the  desert,  when  they  had  no  idea  what  they  were 
in  for! 

His  gaze  fell  and  rested  for  some  time  on  the  bunch 
of  roses  on  his  desk.  Every  morning  there  had  been  a 
fresh  bunch,  in  keeping  with  the  custom  that  Jack  had 
established.  The  father  had  become  so  used  to  their 
presence  that  he  was  unconscious  of  it.  For  all  the 
pleasure  he  got  out  of  them,  they  might  as  well  have 
been  in  the  cornucopia  vase  in  the  limousine.  His 
hand  went  out  spasmodically  toward  the  roses,  as  if 
he  would  crush  them;  crush  this  symbol  of  the  thing 
drawn  from  the  mother  that  had  invaded  the  calm 
autocracy  of  his  existence.  The  velvety  richness  "of 
the  petals  leaning  toward  him  above  the  drooping 
grace  of  their  stems  made  him  pause  in  realization  of 
the  absurdity  of  his  anger.  A  feeling  to  which  he  had 
been  a  stranger  swept  over  him.  It  was  like  a  break- 


348  OVER  THE  PASS 

ing  instinct  of  dependableness;  and  then  he  called  up 
Dr.  Bennington. 

"Well,  he  has  gone!"  he  told  the  doctor,  desperately. 

"You  did  not  tell  him  the  truth!"  came  the  answer; 
and  he  noted  that  the  doctor's  voice  was  without  its 
usual  suavity.  It  was  as  matter-of-fact  to  the  man  of 
millions  as  if  it  had  been  advising  an  operation  in  a 
dispensary  case. 

"No,  not  exactly,"  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  confessed. 

"I  told  you  what  his  nature  was;  how  it  had  drawn 
on  the  temperament  of  his  mother.  I  told  you  that 
with  candor,  with  a  decently  human  humility  appealing 
to  his  affections,  everything  was  possible.  And  remem- 
ber, he  is  strong,  stronger  than  you,  John  Wingfield! 
There's  a  process  of  fate  in  him!  John  Wingfield, 
you — "  The  sentence  ended  abruptly,  as  if  the  doctor 
had  dropped  the  receiver  on  the  hooks  with  a  crash. 

Phantoms  were  closing  in  around  John  Wingfield, 
Sr.  .  .  .  His  memory  ranged  back  over  the  days  cf 
ardent  youth,  in  the  full  tide  of  growing  success,  when 
to  want  a  thing,  human  or  material,  meant  to  have 
it.  ...  And  in  his  time  he  had  told  a  good  many  lies. 
The  right  lie,  big  and  daring,  at  the  right  moment 
had  won  more  than  one  victory.  With  John  Prather 
out  of  the  way,  he  had  decided  on  an  outright  false- 
hood to  his  son.  Why  had  he  not  compromised  with 
Dr.  Bennington's  advice  and  tried  part  falsehood  and 
part  contrition?  But  no  matter,  no  matter.  He 
would  go  on;  he  was  made  of  steel. 

Again  the  tanned  face  and  broad  shoulders  stood 
between  him  and  the  page.  Jack  was  strong;  yes, 
strong;  and  he  was  worth  having.  All  the  old  desire 
of  possession  reappeared,  in  company  with  his  hatred 


"JOHN  WINGFIELD,  YOU "         349 

of  defeat.  He  was  thinking  of  the  bare  spot  on  the 
wall  in  the  drawing-room  in  place  of  the  Velasquez. 
There  would  be  an  end  of  his  saying:  "The  boy  is  the 
spit  of  the  ancestor  and  just  as  good  a  fighter,  too; 
only  his  abilities  are  turned  into  other  channels  more 
in  keeping  with  the  spirit  of  the  age!"  An  end 
of:  "Fine  son  you  have  there!"  from  men  at  the 
club  who  had  given  him  only  a  passing  nod  in  the  old 
days.  For  he  was  not  displeased  that  the  boy  was 
liked,  where  he  himself  was  not.  The  men  whom  he 
admired  were  those  who  had  faced  him  with  "No!" 
across  the  library  desk;  who  had  got  the  better  of  him, 
even  if  he  did  not  admit  it  to  himself.  And  the  strength 
of  his  son,  baffling  to  his  cosmos,  had  won  his  admira- 
tion. No,  he  would  not  lose  Jack's  strength  without 
an  effort;  he  wanted  it  for  his  own.  Perhaps  some- 
thing else,  too,  there  in  the  loneliness  of  the  office  in 
the  face  of  that  bunch  of  roses  was  pulling  him:  the 
thrill  that  he  had  felt  when  he  saw  the  moisture  in 
Jack's  eyes  and  felt  the  warmth  of  his  grasp  before 
Jack  left  the  library. 

And  Jack  and  John  Prather  were  speeding  West 
to  the  same  destination!  They  would  meet!  What 
then?  There  was  no  use  of  trying  to  work  in  an  office 
on  Broadway  when  the  forces  which  he  had  brought 
into  being  over  twenty  years  ago  were  in  danger  of 
being  unloosed  out  on  the  desert,  with  Jack  riding 
free  and  the  fingers  of  the  ancestor-devil  on  the  reins. 
John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  called  in  the  general  manager. 

"You  are  in  charge  until  I  return,"  he  said;  and  a 
few  hours  later  he  was  in  a  private  car,  bound  for 
Little  Rivers. 


Ill 

HE  FINDS  HIS  PLACE  IN  LIFE 


XXXV 
BACK  TO  LITTLE  RIVERS 

As  with  the  gentle  touch  of  a  familiar  hand,  the 
ozone  of  high  altitudes  gradually  and  sweetly  awakened 
Jack.  The  engine  was  puffing  on  an  upgrade;  the  car 
creaked  and  leaned  in  taking  a  curve.  Raising  the 
shade  of  his  berth  he  looked  out  on  spectral  ranges- 
that  seemed  marching  and  tumbling  through  dim  dis- 
tances. With  pillows  doubled  under  his  head  he  lay 
back,  filling  sight  and  mind  with  the  indistinctness 
and  spacious  mystery  of  the  desert  at  night;  recalling; 
his  thoughts  with  his  last  view  of  it  over  two  months 
ago  in  the  morning  hours  after  leaving  El  Paso  and 
seeing  his  future  with  it  now,  where  then  he  had  seen 
his  future  with  the  store. 

"Think  of  old  Burleigh  raising  oranges!  I  am 
sure  that  the  trees  will  be  well  trimmed,"  he  whis- 
pered. "Think  of  Mamie  Devore  in  the  thick  of  the 
great  jelly  competition,  while  the  weight  of  Joe  Mathew- 
son's  shoulders  starts  a  spade  into  the  soil  as  if  it 
were  going  right  to  the  centre  of  the  earth.  Why, 
Joe  is  likely  to  get  us  into  international  difficulties 
by  poking  the  ribs  of  a  Chinese  ancestor!  Yes — if 
we  don't  lose  our  Little  Rivers;  and  we  must  not 
lose  it!" 

The  silvery  face  of  the  moon  grew  fainter  with  the 
coming  of  a  ruddier  light;  the  shadows  of  the  moun- 
tains were  being  etched  definitely  on  the  plateaus 
353 


854  OVER  THE  PASS 

that  stretched  out  like  vast  floors  under  the  develop- 
ing glow  of  sunrise;  and  the  full  splendor  of  day  had 
come,  with  its  majestic  spread  of  vision. 

"When  Joe  sees  that  he  will  feel  so  strong  he  will 
want  to  get  out  and  carry  the  Pullman,"  Jack  thought. 
"But  Mamie  will  not  let  him  for  fear  that  he  will 
overdo ! " 

How  slow  the  train  seemed  to  travel!  It  was  a 
snail  compared  to  Jack's  eagerness  to  arrive.  He 
was  inclined  to  think  that  P.  D.,  Wrath  of  God,  and 
Jag  Ear  were  faster  than  through  expresses.  He  kept 
inquiring  of  the  conductor  if  they  were  on  time,  and 
the  conductor  kept  repeating  that  they  were.  How 
near  that  flash  of  steel  at  a  bend  around  a  tongue  of 
chaotic  rock,  stretching  out  into  the  desert  sea,  with 
its  command  to  man  to  tunnel  or  accept  a  winding 
path  for  his  iron  horse!  How  long  in  coming  to  it 
in  that  rare  air,  with  its  deceit  of  distances!  Land- 
mark after  landmark  of  peak  or  bold  ridge  took  the 
'angle  of  some  recollected  view  of  his  five  years'  wan- 
derings. It  was  already  noon  when  he  saw  Galeria 
from  the  far  end  of  the  long  basin  that  he  had  crossed, 
with  the  V  as  the  compass  of  his  bearings,  on  the  ride 
that  brought  him  to  the  top  to  meet  Mary  and  Pete 
Leddy. 

Then  the  V  was  lost  while  the  train  wound  around 
the  range  that  formed  one  side  of  the  basin's  rim. 
The  blaze  of  midday  had  passed  before  it  entered  the 
reaches  of  the  best  valley  yet  in  the  judgment  of  a 
connoisseur  in  valleys;  and  under  the  Eternal  Painter's 
canopy  a  spot  of  green  quivered  in  the  heat-rays  of 
the  horizon.  His  Majesty  was  in  a  dreamy  mood. 
He  was  playing  in  delicate  variations,  tranquil  and 


BACK  TO  LITTLE  RIVERS  355 

enchanting,  of  effects  in  gold  and  silver,  now  gossa- 
mery thin,  now  thick  and  rich. 

"What -is  this  thing  crawling  along  on  two  silken 
threads  and  so  afraid  of  the  hills?"  he  was  asking, 
sleepily.  "Eh?  No!  Bring  the  easel  to  me,  if  you 
want  a  painting.  I  am  not  going  to  rise  from  my  easy 
couch.  There!  Fix  that  cushion  so !  I  am  a  leisurely, 
lordly  aristocrat.  Palette?  No,  I  will  just  shake  my 
soft  beard  of  fine  mist  back  and  forth  across  the  sky, 
a  spectrum  for  the  sunrays.  So!  so!  I  see  that  this 
worm  is  a  railroad  train.  Let  it  curl  up  in  the  shadow 
of  a  gorge  and  take  a  nap.  I  will  wake  it  up  by  and 
by  when  I  seize  my  brush  and  start  a  riot  in  the  heavens 
that  will  make  its  rows  of  window-glass  eyes  stare." 

"I  am  on  this  train  and  in  a  hurry!"  Jack  objected. 

"Do  I  hear  the  faint  echo  of  a  human  ego  down 
there  on  the  earth?"  demanded  the  Eternal  Painter. 
"Who  are  you?  One  of  the  art  critics?" 

"One  of  Your  Majesty's  loving  subjects,  who  has 
been  away  in  a  foreign  kingdom  and  returns  to  your 
allegiance,"  Jack  answered. 

"So  be  it.  I  shall  know  if  what  you  say  is  true 
when  I  gaze  into  your  eyes  at  sunset. " 

"I  am  bringing  you  a  Velasquez!"  Jack  added. 

"Good!  Put  him  where  he  can  have  a  view  out  of 
the  window  of  his  first  teacher  at  work  in  the  studio 
of  the  universe." 

The  train  crept  on  toward  the  hour  of  the  Eternal 
Painter's  riot  and  toward  Little  Rivers,  while  the 
patch  of  green  was  softly,  impalpably  growing,  grow- 
ing, until  the  crisscross  breaks  of  the  streets  developed 
and  Jack  could  identify  the  Doge's  and  other  bunga- 
lows. He  was  on  the  platform  of  the  car  before  the 


356  OVER  THE  PASS 

brakes  ground  on  the  wheels,  leaning  out  to  see  a 
crowd  at  the  station,  which  a  minute  later  became  a 
prospect  of  familiar,  kindly,  beaming  faces.    There 
was  a  roar  of  "Hello,  Jack!"  in  the  heavy  voices  of 
men  and  the  treble  of  children.    Then  he  did  not  see 
the  faces  at  all  for  a  second;  he  saw  only  mist. 
"Not  tanned,  Jack,  but  you'll  brown  up  soon!" 
"Gosh!    But  we've  been  lonesome  without  you!" 
"Cure  any  case  of  sore  eyes  on  record!" 
Jack  was  too  full  of  the  glory  of  this  unaffected 
welcome  in  answer  to  his  telegram  that  he  was  coming 
to  find  words  at  first;  but  as  he  fairly  dropped  off  the 
steps  into  the  arms  of  Jim  Galway  and  Dr.  Patterson 
he  shouted  in  a  shaking  voice: 

"Hello,    everybody!    Hello,    Little   Rivers!" 
He  noted,  while  all  were  trying  to  grasp  his  hands 
at  once,  that  the  men  had  their  six-shooters.  A  half- 
dozen  were  struggling  to  get  his  suit  case.     Not  one 
of  his  friends  was  missing  except  the  Doge  and  Mary. 
"Let  the  patient  have  a  little  air!"  protested  Dr. 
Patterson,  as  some  started  in  to  shake  hands  a  second 
time. 

"Fellow-citizens,  if  there's  anything  in  the  direct 
primary  I  feel  sure  of  the  nomination!"  said  Jack  drily. 
"You're  already  elected!"  shouted  Bob  Worther. 
Around  at  the  other  side  of  the  station  Jack  found 
Firio  waiting  his  turn  in  patient  isolation,  with  P.  D., 
Wrath  of  God,  and  Jag  Ear. 

"Si!  si!"  called  Firio  triumphantly  to  all  the  sceptics 
who  had  told  him  that  Jack  would  not  return. 

Jack  took  the  little  Indian  by  the  shoulders  and 
rocked  him  back  and  forth  in  delight,  while  Firio's 
eyes  were  burning  coals  of  jubilation. 


BACK  TO  LITTLE  RIVERS  357 

"You  knew!"  Jack  exclaimed.  "You  were  right! 
I  have  come  back!" 

"Si,  si!    I  know!"  repeated  Firio. 

"No  stopping  him  from  bringing  the  whole  caval- 
cade to  the  station,  either,"  said  Jim  Galway.  "And 
he  wouldn't  join  the  rest  of  us  out  in  front  of  the 
station.  He  was  going  to  be  his  own  reception  com- 
mittee and  hold  an  overflow  meeting  all  by  himself!" 

There  was  no  disguising  the  fact  that  the  equine 
trio  of  veterans  remembered  Jack.  With  P.  D.  and 
Jag  Ear  the  demonstration  was  unrestrained;  but 
however  exultant  Wrath  of  God  might  be  in  secret, 
he  was  of  no  mind  to  compromise  his  reputation  for 
lugubriousness  by  any  public  display  of  emotional 
weakness. 

"Wrath  of  God,  I  believe  you  were  a  cross-eyed 
Cromwellian  soldier  in  your  previous  incarnation!" 
said  Jack;  "and  as  it  is  hard  for  a  horse  to  be  cross- 
eyed, you  could  not  retain  the  characteristic.  Think 
of  that!  Wouldn't  a  cross-eyed  Cromwellian  soldier 
strike  fear  to  the  heart  of  any  loyalist?  And  Jag 
Ear,  you're  getting  fat!" 

"I  keep  his  hoofs  hard.  When  he  fat  he  eat  less 
on  trail!"  explained  Firio,  becoming  almost  voluble. 
"All  ready  for  trail!"  he  hinted. 

"Not  now,  Firio,"  said  Jack.  "And,  Firio,  there's 
a  package  at  the  station,  a  big,  flat  case.  It  came 
by  express  on  the  same  train  with  me — the  most 
precious  package  in  the  world.  See  that  it  is  taken 
to  the  house." 

"Si!  You  ride?"  asked  Firio,  offering  P.  D.'s 
reins. 

"No,  we'll  all  walk." 


358  OVER  THE  PASS 

The  procession  had  started  toward  the  town  when 
Jack  felt  something  soft  poking  him  in  the  small  of 
the  back  and  looked  around  to  find  that  the  cause 
was  P.  D.'s  muzzle.  Wrath  of  God  and  Jag  Ear 
might  go  with  Firio,  but  P.  D.  proposed  to  follow  Jack. 

"And  after  I  have  ridden  you  thousands  of  miles 
and  you've  heard  all  my  songs  over  and  over!  Well, 
well,  P.  D.,  you  are  a  subtle  flatterer!  Come  along!" 
Then  he  turned  to  Jim  Galway:  "Has  John  Prather 
arrived?" 

"Yes,  last  night." 

"He  is  here  now?"  Jack  put  in  quickly. 

"No;  he  pulled  out  at  dawn  on  his  way  to  Agua 
Fria." 

"Oh!"  Jack  was  plainly  disappointed.  "He  has 
the  grant  for  the  water  rights?" 

"Yes,"  said  Jim,  "though  he  hasn't  made  the  fact 
public.  He  does  everything  in  his  smooth,  quiet 
fashion,  with  a  long  head,  and  I  suppose  he  hasn't 
things  just  right  yet  to  spring  his  surprise.  But  there 
is  no  disputing  the  fact — he  has  us!" 

One  man  henceforth  was  in  control  of  the  water. 
His  power  over  the  desert  community  would  be  equiva- 
lent to  control  of  the  rains  in  a  humid  locality. 

"You  see,"  Jim  continued,  "old  man  Lefferts' 
partners  had  really  never  sold  out  to  him;  so  his  trans- 
fer to  the  Doge  wasn't  legal.  He  turned  his  papers 
over  to  Prather,  giving  Prather  full  power  to  act  for 
him  in  securing  the  partners'  surrender  of  their  claims 
and  straighten  out  everything  with  the  Territory 
and  get  a  bonafide  concession.  That  is  as  I  under- 
stand it,  for  the  whole  business  has  been  done  in  an 
underhand  way.  Prather  represented  to  the  Doge 


BACK  TO  LITTLE  RIVERS  359 

that  he  was  acting  entirely  in  the  interests  of  the 
community  and  his  only  charge  would  be  the  costs. 
The  Doge  quite  believed  in  Prather's  single-minded- 
ness  and  public  spirit.  Well,  with  the  use  of  money 
and  all  the  influences  he  could  command,  including 
the  kind  that  Pete  Leddy  exercises,  he  got  the  con- 
cession and  in  his  name.  It  was  very  smart  work. 
I  suppose  it  was  due  to  the  crafty  way  he  could  direct 
the  Doge  to  do  his  wishes  that  the  Doge  happened  to 
be  off  the  scene  at  the  critical  stage  of  the  negotiations. 
When  he  went  to  New  York  all  that  remained  was 
for  him  to  obtain  the  capital  for  his  scheme.  Lefferts 
and  his  partners  had  the  underlying  rights  and  the 
Doge  the  later  rights,  thanks  to  his  improvements, 
and  Prather  has  them  both.  Well,  Leddy  and  his 
crowd  have  been  taking  up  plots  right  and  left;  that's 
their  share  in  the  exploitation.  They're  here,  waiting 
for  the  announcement  to  be  made  and — well,  the 
water  users'  association  is  still  in  charge;  but  it  won't 
be  when  Prather  says  the  word." 

"And  you  have  no  plans?"  Jack  asked. 

"None." 

"And  the  Doge?" 

"None.  What  can  the  old  man  do?  Though 
nobody  exactly  blames  him,  a  good  many  aren't  of 
a  mind  to  consult  him  at  all.  The  crisis  has  passed 
beyond  him.  Three  or  four  men,  good  men,  too, 
were  inclined  to  have  it  out  with  John  Prather;  but 
that  would  have  precipitated  a  general  fight  with 
Leddy's  gang.  The  conservatives  got  the  hot-heads 
to  wait  till  you  came.  You  see,  the  trouble  with 
every  suggestion  is  that  pretty  much  everybody  is 
against  it  except  the  fellow  who  made  it.  The  more 


360  OVER  THE  PASS 

we  have  talked,  the  more  we  have  drifted  back  to 
you.  It's  a  case  of  all  we've  got  in  the  world  and 
standing  together,  and  we  are  ready  to  get  behind 
you  and  take  orders,  Jack. " 

"Yes,  ready  to  fight  at  the  drop  of  the  hat,  seh, 
or  to  sit  still  on  our  doorsteps  with  our  tongues  in  our 
cheeks  and  doing  the  wives'  mending,  as  you  say!" 
declared  Bob  Worther.  "It's  right  up  to  you!" 

"You  are  all  of  the  same  opinion?"  asked  Jack. 

They  were,  with  one  voice,  which  was  not  vociferous. 
For  theirs  was  that  significantly  quiet  mood  of  an 
American  crowd  when  easy-going  good  nature  turns 
to  steel.  Their  partisanship  in  pioneerdom  had  not 
been  with  six-shooters,  but  with  the  ethics  of  the 
Doge;  and  such  men  when  aroused  do  not  precede 
action  with  threats. 

"All  right!"  said  Jack. 

There  was  a  rustle  and  an  exchange  of  satisfied 
glances  and  a  chorus  of  approval  like  an  indrawing 
of  breath. 

"First,  I  will  see  the  Doge,"  Jack  added;  "and  then 
I  shall  go  to  the  house. " 

Galway,  Dr.  Patterson,  Worther,  and  three  or  four 
others  went  on  with  him  toward  the  Ewold  bungalow. 
They  were  halted  on  the  way  by  Pete  Leddy,  Ropey 
Smith,  and  a  dozen  followers,  who  appeared  from  a 
side  street  and  stopped  across  Jack's  path,  every  one 
of  them  with  a  certain  slouching  aggressiveness  and 
staring  hard  at  him.  Pete  and  Ropey  still  kept  faith 
with  their  pledge  to  Jack  in  the  arroyo.  They  were 
without  guns,  but  their  companions  were  armed  in 
defiance  of  the  local  ordinance  which  had  been  estab- 
lished for  Jack's  protection. 


BACK  TO  LITTLE  RIVERS  361 

"Howdy  do,  Leddy?"  said  Jack,  as  amiably  as  if 
there  had  never  been  anything  but  the  pleasantest 
of  relations  between  them. 

"  Getting  polite,  eh !  Where's  your  pretty  whistle?  '* 
Leddy  answered. 

"I  put  it  in  storage  in  New  York,"  Jack  said  laugh- 
ing; then,  with  a  sudden  change  to  seriousness :  "  Leddy, 
is  it  true  that  you  and  John  Prather  have  got  the 
water  rights  to  this  town?" 

"None  of  your  d d  business!"  Leddy  rapped 

out.  "The  only  business  I've  got  with  you  has  been 
waiting  for  some  time,  and  you  can  have  it  your  way 
out  in  the  arroyo  where  we  had  it  before,  right  now!" 

"As  I  said,  Pete,  I  put  the  whistle  in  storage  and 
I  have  already  apologized  for  the  way  I  used  it," 
returned  Jack.  "I  can't  accommodate  you  in  the 
arroyo  again.  I  have  other  things  to  attend  to." 

"Then  the  first  time  you  get  outside  the  limits  of 
this  town  you  will  have  to  play  my  way — a  man's 
way!" 

"I  hope  not,  Pete!" 

"Naturally  you  hope  so,  for  you  know  I  will  get 
you,  you " 

"Careful!"  Jack  interrupted.  "You'd  better  leave 
that  out  until  we  are  both  armed.  Or,  if  you  will 
not,  why,  we  both  have  weapons  that  nature  gave 
us.  Do  you  prefer  that  way?"  and  Jack's  weight 
had  shifted  to  the  ball  of  his  foot. 

Plainly  this  was  not  to  Pete's  taste. 

"I  don't  want  to  bruise  you.  I  mean  to  make  a 
clean  hole  through  you!"  he  answered. 

"That  is  both  courteous  and  merciful;  and  you  are 
very  insistent,  Leddy, "  Jack  returned,  and  walked  on. 


362  OVER  THE  PASS 

"Just  as  sweet  as  honey,  just  as  cool  as  ice,  and 
just  as  sunny  as  June!"  whispered  Bob  Worther  to 
the  man  next  him. 

Again  Jack  was  before  the  opening  in  the  Ewold 
hedge,  with  its  glimpse  of  the  spacious  living-room. 
The  big  ivory  paper-cutter  lay  in  its  accustomed 
place  on  the  broad  top  of  the  Florentine  table.  In 
line  with  it  on  the  wall  was  a  photograph  of  Abbey's 
mural  in  the  Pennsylvania  capitol  and  through  the 
open  window  a  photograph  of  a  Puvis  de  Chavannes 
was  visible.  Evidently  the  Doge  had  already  hung 
some  of  the  reproductions  of  masterpieces  which  he  had 
brought  from  New  York.  But  no  one  was  on  the  porch 
or  in  the  living-room;  the  house  was  silent.  As  Jack 
started  across  the  cement  bridge  he  was  halted  by  a 
laugh  from  his  companions.  He  found  that  P.  D. 
was  taking  no  risks  of  losing  his  master  again;  he 
was  going  right  on  into  the  Doge's,  too.  Jim  took 
charge  of  him,  receiving  in  return  a  glance  from  the 
pony  that  positively  reeked  of  malice. 

Again  Jack  was  on  his  way  around  the  Doge's 
bungalow  on  the  journey  he  had  made  so  many  times 
in  the  growing  ardor  of  the  love  that  had  mastered 
his  senses.  The  quiet  of  the  garden  seemed  a  part 
of  the  pervasive  stillness  that  stretched  away  to  the 
pass  from  the  broad  path  of  the  palms  under  the 
blazonry  of  the  sun.  As  he  proceeded  he  heard  the 
crunching  of  gravel  under  a  heavy  tread.  The  Doge 
was  pacing  back  and  forth  in  the  cross  path,  fighting 
despair  with  the  forced  vigor  of  his  steps,  while  Mary 
was  seated  watching  him.  As  the  Doge  wheeled  to 
face  Jack  at  the  sound  of  his  approach,  it  was  not  in 
surprise,  but  rather  hi  preparedness  for  the  expected 


BACK  TO  LITTLE  RIVERS  363 

appearance  of  another  character  in  a  drama.  This 
was  also  Mary's  attitude.  They  had  heard  of  his 
coming  and  they  received  his  call  with  a  trace  of 
fatalistic  curiosity.  The  Doge  suddenly  dropped  on 
a  bench,  as  if  overcome  by  the  weariness  and  depres- 
sion of  spirits  that  he  had  been  defying;  but  there 
was  something  unyielding  and  indomitable  in  Mary's 
aspect. 

"Well,  Sir  Chaps,  welcome!"  said  the  Doge.  "We 
still  have  a  seat  in  the  shade  for  you.  Will  you  sit 
down?" 

But  Jack  remained  standing,  as  if  what  he  had  to 
say  would  be  soon  said. 

"I  have  come  back  and  come  for  good,"  he  began. 
"Yes,  I  have  come  back  to  take  all  the  blue  ribbons 
at  ranching,"  he  added,  with  a  touch  of  garden  non- 
sense that  came  like  a  second  thought  to  soften  the 
abruptness  of  his  announcement. 

"For  good!  For  good!  You!"  The  Doge  stared 
at  Jack  in  incomprehension. 

"Yes,  my  future  is  out  here,  now." 

"You  give  up  the  store — the  millions — your  inheri- 
tance!" cried  the  Doge,  still  amazed  and  sceptical  as 
he  sounded  the  preposterousness  of  this  idea  to  worldly 
credulity. 

"Quite!" 

There  was  no  mistaking  the  firmness  of  the  word. 
"To  make  your  fortune,  your  life,  out  here?" 

The  Doge's  voice  was  throbbing  with  the  wonder  of 
the  thing. 

"Yes!" 

"Why?  Why?  I  feel  that  I  have  a  right  to  ask 
why!"  demanded  the  Doge,  in  all  the  majesty  of  the 


364  OVER  THE  PASS 

moment  when  he  faced  John  Wingfield,  Sr.  in  the 
drawing-room. 

"Because  of  a  lie  and  what  it  concealed.  Because 
of  reasons  that  may  not  be  so  vague  to  you  as  they 
are  to  me." 

"A  lie!  Yes,  a  lie  that  came  home!"  the  Doge 
repeated,  while  he  passed  his  hand  back  and  forth 
over  his  eyes.  The  hand  was  trembling.  Indeed, 
his  whole  body  was  trembling,  while  he  sought  for 
self-control  and  to  collect  his  thoughts  for  what  he 
had  to  say  to  that  still  figure  awaiting  his  words. 
When  he  looked  up  it  was  with  an  expression  wholly 
new  to  Jack.  Its  candor  was  not  that  of  transparent 
mental  processes  in  serene  philosophy  or  forensic 
display,  but  that  of  a  man  who  was  about  to  lay  bare 
things  of  the  past  which  he  had  kept  secret. 

"Sir  Chaps,  I  am  going  to  give  you  my  story,  how- 
ever weak  and  blameworthy  it  makes  me  appear," 
he  said.  "Sir  Chaps,  you  saw  me  in  anger  in  the 
Wingfield  drawing-room,  further  baffling  you  with 
a  mystery  which  must  have  begun  for  you  the  night 
that  you  came  to  Little  Rivers  when  we  exchanged 
a  look  in  which  I  saw  that  you  knew  that  I  recog- 
nized you.  I  tried  to  talk  as  if  you  were  a  welcome 
stranger,  when  I  was  holding  in  my  rancor.  There 
was  no  other  face  in  the  world  that  I  would  not  rather 
have  seen  in  this  community  than  yours! 

"How  glad  I  was  to  hear  that  you  were  leaving  by 
the  morning  train!  How  I  counted  the  days  of  your 
convalescence  after  you  were  wounded!  How  glad 
I  was  at  the  news  that  you  were  to  go  as  soon  as  you 
were  well !  With  what  a  revelry  of  suggestion  I  planned 
to  speed  your  parting!  How  demoralized  I  was 


BACK  TO  LITTLE  RIVERS  365 

when  you  announced  that  you  were  going  to  stay! 
How  amazed  at  your  seriousness  about  ranching — 
but  how  distrustful!  Yet  what  joy  in  your  com- 
panionship! At  times  I  wanted  to  get  my  arms 
around  you  and  hug  you  as  a  scarred  old  grizzly  bear 
would  hug  a  cub.  And,  first  and  last,  your  success 
with  everybody  here!  Your  cool  hand  in  the  duel! 
That  iron  in  your  will  which  would  triumph  at  any 
cost  when  you  broke  Nogales's  arm!  For  some  reason 
you  had  chosen  to  stop,  in  the  play  period  of  youth, 
on  the  way  to  the  inheritance  to  overcome  some  obstacle 
that  it  pleased  you  to  overcome  and  to  amuse  your- 
self a  while  in  Little  Rivers — you  with  your  steadiness 
in  a  fight  and  your  airy,  smiling  confidence  in  your- 
self!" 

"I— I  did  not  know  that  I  was  like  that!"  said  Jack, 
in  hurt,  groping  surprise.  "Was  I  truly?" 

The  Doge  nodded. 

"As  I  saw  you,"  he  said. 

Jack  looked  at  Mary,  frankly  and  calmly. 

"Was  I  truly?"  he  asked  her. 

"As  I  saw  you!"  she  repeated,  as  an  impersonal, 
honest  witness. 

"Then  I  must  have  been!"  he  said,  with  convic- 
tion. "But  I  hope  that  I  shall  not  be  in  the  future." 
And  he  smiled  at  Mary  wistfully.  But  her  gaze  was 
bent  on  the  ground. 

"And  you  want  it  all — all  the  story  from  me?" 
the  Doge  asked,  hesitating. 

"All!"  Jack  answered. 

"It  strikes  hard  at  your  father." 

"The  truth  must  strike  where  it  will,  now!" 

"Then,  your  face,  so  like  your  father's,  stood  for 


366  OVER  THE  PASS 

the  wreck  of  two  lives  to  me,  and  for  recollections  in 
my  own  career  that  tinged  my  view  of  you,  Jack. 
You  were  one  newcomer  to  Little  Rivers  to  whom  I 
could  not  wholly  apply  the  desert  rule  of  oblivion  to 
the  past  and  judgment  of  every  man  solely  by  his 
conduct  in  this  community.  No!  It  was  out  of 
the  question  that  I  could  ever  look  at  you  without 
thinking  who  you  were. 

"You  know,  of  course,  that  your  father  and  I  spent 
our  boyhood  in  Burbridge.  Once  I  found  that  he 
had  told  me  an  untruth  and  we  had  our  difference 
out,  as  boys  will;  and,  as  I  was  in  the  right,  he  con- 
fessed the  lie  before  I  let  him  up.  That  defeat  was 
a  hurt  to  his  egoism  that  he  could  not  forget.  He 
was  that  way,  John  Wingfield,  in  his  egoism.  It  was 
like  flint,  and  his  ambition  and  energy  were  without 
bounds.  I  remember  he  would  say  when  teased 
that  some  day  he  should  have  more  money  than  all 
the  town  together,  and  when  he  had  money  no  one 
would  dare  to  tease  him.  He  had  a  remarkable  gift 
of  ingratiation  with  anyone  who  could  be  of  service 
to  him.  My  uncle,  who  was  the  head  of  the  family, 
was  fond  of  him;  he  saw  the  possibilities  of  success 
'in  this  smart  youngster  in  a  New  England  village. 
It  was  the  Ewold  money  that  gave  John  Wingfield 
his  start.  With  it  he  bought  the  store  in  which  he 
began  as  a  clerk.  He  lost  a  good  part  of  the  Ewold 
fortune  later  in  one  of  his  enterprises  that  did  not 
turn  out  well.  But  all  this  is  trifling  beside  what  is 
to  come. 

"He  went  on  to  his  great  commercial  career.  I, 
poor  fool,  was  an  egoist,  too.  I  tried  to  paint.  I  had 
taste,  but  no  talent.  In  outbursts  of  despair  my 


BACK  TO  LITTLE  RIVERS  367 

critical  discrimination  consigned  my  own  work  to  the 
rubbish  heap.  I  tried  to  write  books,  only  to  find 
that  all  I  had  was  a  head  stuffed  with  learning,  mixed 
with  the  philosophy  that  is  death  to  the  concentrated 
application  that  means  positive  accomplishment.  But 
I  could  not  create.  I  was  by  nature  only  a  drinker 
at  the  fountain;  only  a  student,  the  pitiful  student 
who  could  read  his  Caesar  at  eight,  learn  a  language 
without  half  trying,  but  with  no  ability  to  make  my 
knowledge  of  service;  with  no  masterful  purpose  of 
my  own — a  failure!" 

"No  one  is  a  failure  who  spreads  kindliness  and 
culture  as  he  goes  through  life,"  Jack  interrupted, 
earnestly;  "who  gives  of  himself  unstintedly  as  you 
have;  who  teaches  people  to  bring  a  tribute  of  flowers 
to  a  convalescent!  Why,  to  found  a  town  and  make 
the  desert  bloom — that  is  better  than  to  add  another 
book  to  the  weight  of  library  shelves  or  to  get  a 
picture  on  the  line!" 

"Thank  you,  Jack!"  said  the  Doge,  with  a  flash 
of  his  happy  manner  of  old,  while  there  was  the  play 
of  fleeting  sunshine  over  the  hills  and  valleys  of  his 
features.  "I  won't  call  it  persiflage.  I  am  too  self- 
ish, too  greedy  of  a  little  cheer  to  call  it  persiflage. 
I  like  the  illusion  you  suggest." 

He  was  silent  for  a  while,  and  when  he  spoke  again 
it  was  with  the  tragic  simplicity  of  one  near  his  climax. 

"Your  father  and  I  loved  the  same  girl — your 
mother.  It  seemed  that  in  every  sympathy  of  mind 
and  heart  she  and  I  were  meant  to  travel  the  long  high- 
way together.  But  your  father  won  her  with  his  gift 
for  ingratiation  with  the  object  of  his  desire,  which 
amounts  to  a  kind  of  genius.  He  won  her  with  a  lie 


368  OVER  THE  PASS 

and  put  me  in  a  position  that  seemed  to  prove  that 
the  lie  was  truth.  She  accepted  him  in  reaction;  in 
an  impulse  of  heart-break  that  followed  what  she 
believed  to  be  a  revelation  of  my  true  character  as 
something  far  worse  than  that  of  idler.  I  married 
the  woman  whom  he  had  made  the  object  of  his  well- 
managed  calumny.  My  wife  knew  where  my  heart 
was  and  why  I  had  married  her.  It  is  from  her  that 
Mary  gets  her  dark  hair  and  the  brown  of  her  cheeks 
which  make  her  appear  so  at  home  on  the  desert. 
Soon  after  Mary's  birth  she  chose  to  live  apart  from 
me — but  I  will  not  speak  further  of  her.  She  is  long 
ago  dead.  I  knew  that  your  mother  had  left  your 
father.  I  saw  her  a  few  times  in  Europe.  But  she 
never  gave  the  reason  for  the  separation.  She  would 
talk  nothing  of  the  past,  and  with  the  years  heavy 
on  our  shoulders  and  the  memory  of  what  we  had 
been  to  each  other  hovering  close,  words  came  with 
difficulty  and  every  one  was  painful.  Her  whole 
life  was  bound  up  in  you,  as  mine  was  in  Mary.  It 
was  you  that  kept  her  from  being  a  bitter  cynic;  you 
that  kept  her  alive. 

"Some  of  the  Ewold  money  that  John  Wingfield 
lost  was  mine.  You  see  how  he  kept  on  winning; 
how  all  the  threads  of  his  weaving  closed  in  around 
me.  I  came  to  the  desert  to  give  Mary  life  with  the 
fragments  of  my  fortune;  and  here  I  hope  that,  as 
you  say,  I  have  done  something  worthier  than  live  the 
life  of  a  wandering,  leisurely  student  who  had  lapsed 
into  the  observer  for  want  of  the  capacity  by  nature 
or  training  to  do  anything  else. 

"But  sometimes  I  did  long  for  the  centres  of  civili- 
zation; to  touch  elbows  with  their  activities;  to  feel 


BACK  TO  LITTLE  RIVERS  369 

the  flow  of  the  current  of  humanity  in  great  streets. 
Not  that  I  wanted  to  give  up  Little  Rivers,  but  I 
wanted  to  go  forth  to  fill  the  mind  with  argosies  which 
I  could  enjoy  here  at  my  leisure.  And  Mary  was 
young.  The  longing  that  she  concealed  must  be  far 
more  powerful  than  mine.  I  saw  the  supreme  selfish- 
ness of  shutting  her  up  on  the  desert,  without  any 
glimpse  of  the  outer  world.  I  sensed  the  call  that 
sent  her  on  her  lonely  rides  to  the  pass.  I  feared  that 
your  coming  had  increased  her  restlessness. 

"But  I  wander!  That  is  my  fault,  as  you  know, 
Sir  Chaps.  Well,  we  come  to  the  end  of  the  weaving; 
to  the  finality  of  John  Wingfield's  victory.  Little 
Rivers  was  getting  out  of  hand.  I  could  plan  a  ranch, 
but  I  had  not  a  business  head.  I  had  neither  the 
gift  nor  the  experience  to  deal  with  lawyers  and 
land-grabbers.  I  knew  that  with  the  increase  of  popu- 
lation and  development  our  position  was  exciting  the 
cupidity  of  those  who  find  quicker  profit  in  annexing 
what  others  have  built  than  in  building  on  their  own 
account.  I  knew  that  we  ought  to  have  a  great  dam; 
that  there  was  water  to  irrigate  ten  times  the  present 
irrigated  area. 

"Then  came  John  Prather.  I  saw  in  him  the 
judgment,  energy,  and  ability  for  organization  of  a 
real  man  of  affairs.  He  was  young,  self-made,  engag- 
ing and  convincing  of  manner.  He  liked  our  life 
and  ideals  in  Little  Rivers;  he  wanted  to  share  our 
future.  In  his  resemblance  to  you  I  saw  nothing 
but  a  coincidence  that  I  passed  over  lightly.  He 
knew  how  to  handle  the  difficult  situation  that  arose 
with  the  reappearance  of  old  man  Lefferts'  partners. 
He  would  get  the  water  rights  legalized  beyond  dis- 


370  OVER  THE  PASS 

pute  and  turn  them  over  to  the  water  users'  associa- 
tion; he  would  bring  in  capital  for  the  dam;  the  value 
of  our  property  would  be  enhanced;  Little  Rivers 
would  become  a  city  in  her  own  right,  while  I  was 
growing  old  delectably  in  the  pride  of  founder.  So 
he  pictured  it  and  so  I  dreamed.  I  was  so  sure  of 
the  future  that  I  dared  the  expense  of  a  trip  to  New 
York. 

"And  always  to  me,  when  I  looked  at  you  and  when 
I  thought  of  you,  you  were  the  son  of  John  Wingfield; 
you  incarnated  the  inheritance  of  his  strength.  But 
when,  from  the  drawing-room,  I  saw  your  father, 
whom  I  had  not  seen  for  fifteen  years,  then — well, 
the  thing  came  to  me  in  a  burning  second,  the  while 
I  glimpsed  his  face  before  he  saw  mine.  He  was 
smiling  as  if  pleased  with  himself  and  his  power;  he 
was  rubbing  the  palms  of  his  hands  together;  and 
I  saw  that  it  was  John  Prather  who  was  like  John 
Wingfield  in  manner,  pose,  and  feature.  You  were 
like  the  fighting  man,  your  ancestor,  and  your  airy 
confidence  was  his.  And  I,  witless  and  unperceiving, 
had  been  won  by  the  same  methods  of  ingratiation 
with  which  John  Wingfield  had  won  the  assistance 
of  the  Ewold  fortune  for  the  first  step  of  his  career; 
with  which  he  had  won  Alice  Jamison  and  kept  me 
unaware  of  his  plan  while  he  was  lying  to  her. 

"Finally,  let  us  say,  in  all  charity,  that  your  father 
is  what  he  is  because  of  what  is  born  in  him  and  for 
the  same  reason  that  the  snowball  gathers  size  as  it 
rolls;  and  I  am  what  I  am  for  the  same  reason  that 
the  wind  scatter  the  sands  of  the  desert — a  man 
full  of  books  and  tangent  inconsequence  of  ideas, 
without  sense;  a  simpleton  who  knows  a  painting  but 


BACK  TO  LITTLE  RIVERS  371 

does  not  know  men;  a  garrulous,  philosophizing, 
blind,  old  simpleton,  whose  pompous  incompetency 
has  betrayed  a  trust!  Through  me,  men  and  women 
came  here  to  settle  and  make  a  home!  Through  me 
they  lose — to  my  shame!" 

The  Doge  buried  his  face  in  his  hands  and  drew  a 
deep  breath  more  pitiful  than  a  sob,  which,  as  it  went 
free  of  the  lungs,  seemed  to  leave  an  empty  ruin  of 
what  had  once  been  a  splendid  edifice.  He  was  in 
striking  contrast  to  Mary,  who,  throughout  the  story 
fondly  regarding  him,  had  remained  as  straight  as  a 
young  pine.  Now,  with  her  rigidity  suddenly  become 
so  pliant  that  it  was  a  fluid  thing  mixed  of  indignation, 
fearlessness,  and  compelling  sympathy,  she  sprang 
to  his  side.  She  knew  the  touchstone  to  her  father's 
emotion.  He  did  not  want  his  cheek  patted  in  that 
moment  of  agony.  He  wanted  a  stimulant;  some 
justification  for  living. 

"  There  is  no  shame  in  believing  in  those  who  speak 
fairly!  There  is  honor,  the  honor  of  faith  in  man- 
kind!" she  cried  penetratingly.  "There  is  no  shame 
in  being  the  victim  of  lies!" 

"No!  No  shame!"  the  Doge  cried,  rising  unsteadily 
to  his  feet  under  the  whip. 

"And  we  are  not  afraid  for  the  future!"  she  contin- 
•  ued.  "And  the  other  men  and  women  in  Little  Rivers 
are  not  afraid  for  the  future!" 

"  No,  not  afraid  under  this  sun,  in  this  air.    Afraid ! " 

An  unconquerable  flame  had  come  into  his  eyes 
in  answer  to  that  in  Mary's. 

"The  others  have  asked  me  to  act  for  them,  and 
I  think  I  may  yet  save  our  rights,"  said  Jack.  "Will 
you  also  trust  me?" 


372  OVER  THE  PASS 

"Will  I  trust  you,  Jack?  Trust  you  who  gave  up 
your  inheritance?"  exclaimed  the  Doge.  "I  would 
trust  you  on  a  mission  to  the  stars  or  to  lead  a  regi- 
ment; and  the  wish  of  the  others  is  mine." 

Jack  had  turned  to  go,  but  he  looked  back  at  Mary. 

"And  you,  Mary?    I  have  your  good  wishes?" 

He  could  not  resist  that  question;  and  though  it  was 
clear  that  nothing  could  stay  him — as  clear  as  it  had 
been  in  the  arroyo  that  he  would  keep  his  word  and 
face  Leddy — he  was  hanging  on  her  word  and  he  was 
seeing  her  eyes  moist,  with  a  bright  fire  like  that  of 
sunshine  on  still  water.  She  was  swaying  slightly 
as  a  young  pine  might  in  a  wind.  Her  eyes  darkened 
as  with  fear,  then  her  cheeks  went  crimson  with  the 
stir  of  her  blood;  and  suddenly,  her  eyes  were  spark- 
ling in  their  moisture  like  water  when  it  ripples  under 
sunshine. 

"Yes,  Jack,"  she  said  quietly,  with  the  tense  eager- 
ness of  a  good  cause  that  sends  a  man  away  to  the 
wars. 

"That  is  everything!"  he  answered. 

So  it  was!  Everything  that  he  could  ask  now,  with 
his  story  and  hers  so  fresh  in  mind!  He  started  up 
the  path,  but  stopped  at  the  turn  to  look  back  and 
wave  his  hand  to  the  two  figures  in  a  confident  gesture. 

"Luck  with  you,  Sir  Chaps!"  called  the  Doge,  with 
all  the  far-carrying  force  of  his  oldtime  sonorousness. 

"Luck!  luck!"  Mary  called,  on  her  part;  and  her 
voice  had  a  flute  note  that  seemed  to  go  singing  on 
its  own  ether  waves  through  the  tender  green  foliage, 
through  all  the  gardens  of  Little  Rivers,  and  even 
away  to  the  pass. 

"Mary!  Mary!"  he  answered,  with  a  ring  of  cheeri- 


BACK  TO  LITTLE  RIVERS  373 

ness.  "Luck  for  me  will  always  come  at  your  com- 
mand!" 

A  moment  later  Galway  and  the  others  saw  him 
smiling  with  a  hope  that  ran  as  high  as  his  purpose, 
as  he  passed  through  the  gateway  of  the  hedge. 

"It  will  all  be  right!"  he  told  them. 

With  P.  D.  keeping  his  muzzle  close  to  the  middle 
of  Jack's  back,  the  party  started  toward  his  house, 
which  took  them  almost  the  length  of  the  main  street. 

"Prather  went  by  the  range  trail,  of  course?"  Jack 
asked  Galway. 

"No,  straight  out  across  the  desert,"  said  Galway. 

"Straight  out  across  the  desert!"  exclaimed  Jack, 
mystified. 

For  one  had  a  choice  of  two  routes  to  Agua  Fria, 
which  was  well  over  the  border  in  Mexico.  Not  a 
drop  of  water  was  to  be  had  on  the  way  across  the 
trackless  plateau,  but  halfway  on  the  range  trail  was 
a  camping-place,  Las  Cascadas,  where  a  spring  which 
spouted  in  a  tiny  cascade  welcomed  the  traveller. 
Under  irrigation,  most  of  the  land  for  the  whole  stretch 
between  the  two  towns  would  be  fertile.  There  was 
said  to  be  a  big  underground  run  at  Agua  Fria  that 
could  be  pumped  at  little  expense. 

"All  I  can  make  out  of  Prather's  taking  a  straight 
line,  which  really  is  slower,  as  you  know,  on  account 
of  the  heavy  sand  in  places,  is  to  look  over  the  soil," 
said  Galway.  "He  may  be  preparing  to  get  a  con- 
cession in  Mexico  at  the  same  time  as  on  this  side, 
so  as  to  secure  control  of  the  whole  valley.  It  means 
railroads,  factories,  new  towns,  millions — but  you  and 
I  have  talked  all  this  before  in  our  dreams." 

"Who  was  with  him?"  Jack  asked. 

"Pedro  Nogales.     He  seems  to  have  taken  quite 


374  OVER  THE  PASS 

a  fancy  to  Pedro  and  Pedro  is  acting  as  guide.  Leddy 
recommended  him,  I  suppose." 

"No  one  else?" 

"No." 

"Good!"  said  Jack. 

As  they  turned  into  the  side  street  where  the  front 
of  Jack's  bungalow  was  visible,  Jim  Galway  observed 
that  they  had  seen  nothing  of  Leddy  or  any  of  his 
followers. 

"Maybe  he's  gone  to  join  Prather,"  said  Bob 
Worther. 

But  Jack  paid  no  attention  to  the  remark.  He  was 
preoccupied  with  the  first  sight  of  his  ranch  in  over 
two  months. 

"It  will  be  all  right!"  he  called  out  to  the  crowd 
in  his  yard;  for  the  others  who  had  met  him  at  the 
station  were  waiting  for  him  there.  "Bob,  those 
umbrella-trees  could  shade  a  thin,  short  man  now, 
even  if  he  didn't  hug  the  trunk!  Firio  has  done  well, 
hasn't  he?"  he  concluded,  after  he  had  walked  through 
the  garden  and  surveyed  the  fields  and  orchards  in 
fond  comparison  as  to  progress. 

"The  best  I  ever  knew  an  Indian  to  do!"  said  Jim 
Galway. 

"And  everything  kept  right  on  growing  while  I  was 
away!  That's  the  joy  of  planting  things.  They  are 
growing  for  somebody,  if  not  for  you ! " 

Inside  the  house  he  found  Firio,  with  the  help  of 
some  of  the  ranchers,  taking  the  pictures  out  of  their 
cases.  Firio  surveyed  the  buccaneer  for  some  time, 
squinting  his  eyes  and  finally  opening  them  saucer- 
wide  in  approval. 

"You!"  he  said  to  Jack.  And  of  the  Sargent,  after 
equally  deliberate  observation,  he  said:  "A  lady!" 


BACK  TO  LITTLE  RIVERS  375 

That  seemed  about  all  there  was  to  say  and  expressed 
the  thought  of  the  onlookers. 

"And,  Firio,  now  it's  the  trail!"  said  Jack. 
1  "  SI,  si! "  said  Firio,  ever  so  softly.    "  We  take  rifles?  " 

"Yes.    Food  for  a  week  and  two-days'  water." 

It  pleased  Jack  to  hang  the  portraits  while  Firio 
was  putting  on  Jag  Ear's  pack;  and  he  made  it  a 
ceremony  in  which  his  silence  was  uninterrupted  by 
the  comments  of  the  ranchers.  They  stood  in  won- 
dering awe  before  John  Wingfield,  Knight,  hung  where 
he  could  watch  the  Eternal  Painter  at  his  sunset  dis- 
plays and  looking  at  the  "Portrait  of  a  Lady"  across 
the  breadth  of  the  living-room,  whose  neutral  tones 
made  a  perfect  setting  for  their  dominant  genius. 

"  I  believe  they  are  at  home, "  said  Jack,  with  a  fond 
look  from  one  to  the  other,  when  Firio  came  to  say 
that  everything  was  ready. 

"Senor  Jack,"  whispered  Firio  insinuatingly,  "for 
the  trail  you  wear  the  grand,  glad  trail  clothes  and  the 
big  spurs.  I  keep  them  shiny — the  big  spurs!"  He 
was  speaking  with  the  authority  of  an  expert  in  trail 
fashions,  who  would  consider  Jack  in  very  bad  form 
if  he  refused. 

"Why,  yes,  Firio,  yes;  it  is  so  long  since  we  have 
been  on  the  trail!"  And  he  went  into  the  bedroom 
to  make  the  change. 

"I've  never  seen  him  quite  so  dumb  quiet!"  said 
Worther. 

Jack  certainly  had  been  quiet,  ominously  quiet  and 
self-contained.  When  he  came  out  of  the  bedroom 
he  was  without  the  jaunty  freedom  of  manner  that 
Little  Rivers  always  associated  with  his  full  regalia. 
In  place  of  the  dreamy  distances  in  his  eyes  on  such; 


376  OVER  THE  PASS 

occasions  were  a  sad  preoccupation  and  determination. 
When  they  went  outside  to  Firio  and  the  waiting  ponies, 
the  Eternal  Painter  was  in  his  evening  orgy  of  splen- 
dor. But  even  Jack  did  not  look  up  at  the  sky  this 
time  as  he  walked  along  in  silence  with  his  fellow-citi- 
zens to  the  point  where  the  farthest  furrow  of  his 
ranch  had  been  drawn  across  the  virgin  desert.  His 
foot  was  already  in  the  stirrup  when  Jim  Galway 
spoke  the  thought  of  all: 

"Jack,  there's  only  two  of  you,  and  if  it  happened 
that  you  met  Leddy " 

"It  is  Prather  that  I  want  to  see,"  Jack  answered. 

"But  Leddy 's  whole  gang!  We  don't  know  what 
your  plans  are,  but  if  there's  going  to  be  a  mix-up, 
why,  we've  got  to  be  with  you!" 

"No!"  said  Jack,  decidedly.  "Remember,  Jim, 
you  were  to  trust  me.  This  is  a  mission  that  requires 
only  two;  it  is  between  Prather  and  me.  We  are 
going  to  get  acquainted  for  the  first  time." 

Already  Firio,  riding  Wrath  of  God,  had  started, 
and  the  bells  of  Jag  Ear  were  jingling,  while  the  rifles, 
their  bores  so  clean  from  Firio's  care,  danced  with 
the  gleams  of  sunset  in  their  movement  with  the 
burro's  jogging  trot.  Jack  sprang  into  the  saddle, 
his  face  lighting  as  the  foot  came  home  in  the  stirrup. 

"It  will  be  all  right!"  he  called  back. 

P.  D.  in  the  freshness  of  his  long  holiday,  feeling  a 
familiar  pressure  of  a  leg,  hastened  to  overtake  his 
companions;  and  the  group  of  Little  Riversites  watched 
a  chubby  horseman  and  a  tall,  gaunt  horseman,  bathed 
in  gold,  riding  away  on  a  hazy  sea  of  gold,  with  Jag 
Ear's  bells  growing  fainter  and  fainter,  until  the  mov- 
ing specks  were  lost  in  the  darkness. 


XXXVI 

AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE 

Easy  traveller  had  turned  speedy  traveller,  on  a 
schedule.  Never  had  he  and  Firio  ridden  so  fast 
as  in  pursuit  of  John  Prather,  who  had  eight  hours' 
start  of  them  on  a  two-days'  journey.  Jag  Ear  had 
to  trot  all  the  time  to  keep  up.  Ounce  by  ounce  he 
was  drawing  on  his  sinking  fund  of  fat  in  a  constitu- 
tional crisis. 

"I  keep  his  hoofs  good.  I  keep  his  wind  good. 
All  right!"  said  Firio. 

It  was  after  midnight  before  the  steady  jingle  of 
Jag  Ear's  orchestra  had  any  intermission.  An  hour 
for  food  and  rest  and  the  little  party  was  off  again  in 
the  delicious  cool  of  the  night,  toward  a  curtain  pricked 
with  stars  which  seemed  to  be  drawn  down  over  the 
edge  of  the  world. 

"What  sort  of  horses  had  Prather  and  Nogales?" 
Jack  asked.  He  must  reach  the  water-hole  as  soon 
as  Prather;  for  it  was  not  unlikely  that  Prather  might 
have  fresh  mounts  waiting  there  to  take  him  on  to 
the  nearest  railroad  station  in  Mexico. 

"Look  good,  but  bad.  Nogales  no  know  horses!" 
Firio  answered. 

"  And  they  rode  in  the  heat  of  the  day ! "  said  Jack, 
confidently. 

"Si!    And  we  ride  P.  D.  and  Wrath  of  God!" 

There  were  no  sign-posts  on  this  highway  of  desert 
377 


378  OVER  THE  PASS 

space  except  the  many-armed  giant  cacti,  in  their 
furrowed  armor  set  with  clusters  of  needles,  like  tawny 
auroras  gleaming  faintly;  no  trail  on  the  hard  earth 
under  foot,  mottled  with  bunches  of  sagebrush  and 
sprays  of  low-lying  cacti,  all  as  still  as  the  figures  of 
an  inlaid  flooring  in  the  violet  sheen,  with  an  occa- 
sional quick,  irregular,  shadowy  movement  when  a 
frightened  lizard  or  a  gopher  beat  a  precipitate  retreat 
from  the  invading  thud  of  hoofs  in  this  sanctuary  of 
dust-dry  life.  And  the  course  of  the  hoofs  was  set 
midway  between  the  looming  masses  of  the  mountain 
walls  of  the  valley. 

Firio  listened  for  songs  from  Senor  Jack;  he  waited 
for  stories  from  Senor  Jack;  but  none  came.  He,  the 
untalkative  one  of  the  pair,  the  living  embodiment 
of  a  silent  and  happy  companionship  back  and  forth 
from  Colorado  to  Chihuahua,  liked  to  hear  talk. 
Without  it  he  was  lonesome.  If,  by  the  criterion  of 
a  school  examination,  he  never  understood  more  than 
half  of  what  Jack  said,  yet,  in  the  measure  of  spirit, 
he  understood  everything. 

Now  Jack  was  going  mile  after  mile  with  nothing 
except  occasional  urging  words  to  P.  D.  His  close- 
cut  hair  well  brushed  back  from  his  forehead  revealed 
the  sweep  of  his  brow,  lengthening  his  profile  and 
adding  to  the  effect  of  his  leanness.  The  moonlight 
on  his  face,  which  had  lost  its  tan,  gave  him  an  aspect  > 
of  subdued  and  patient  serenity  in  keeping  with  the 
surroundings.  You  would  have  said  that  he  could 
ride  on  forever  without  tiring,  and  that  he  could  go 
over  a  precipice  now  without  even  seeing  any  danger 
sign.  He  had  never  been  like  this  in  all  Firio's  mem- 
ory. The  silence  became  unsupportable  for  once  to 


AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE          379 

Indian  taciturnity.  If  Jack  would  not  talk  Firio 
would.  Yes,  he  would  ask  a  question,  just  to  hear 
the  sound  of  a  voice. 

"We  go  to  fight?" 

"No,  Firio." 

"Not  to  fight  Prather?'- 

"No." 

"To  fight  Leddy?" 

"I  hope  not." 

"Why  we  go?  Why  so — why  so — "  he  had  not  the 
language  to  express  the  strange,  brooding  inquiry  of 
his  mind. 

"I  go  to  save  Little  Rivers." 

"Si!"  said  Firio,  but  as  if  this  did  not  answer  his 
question. 

"I  go  to  get  the  end  of  a  story,  Firio — my  story!" 
continued  Jack.  "  I  have  travelled  long  for  the  story 
and  now  I  shall  have  it  all  from  John  Prather." 

"Si,  si!"  said  Firio,  as  if  all  the  knowledge  in  the 
world  had  flashed  into  his  head  quicker  than  the  hand 
of  legerdemain  could  run  the  leaves  of  a  pack  of  cards 
through  its  fingers.  "And  then?" 

At  last  Firio  had  won  a  smile  from  the  untanned 
face  which  could  not  be  the  same  to  him  until  it  was 
tanned. 

"Then  I  shall  plant  seeds  and  keep  the  ground 
around  them  soft  and  the  weeds  out  of  it;  and  I  shall 
wear  my  heart  on  my  sleeve  and  lay  a  siege — a  siege 
in  the  open,  without  parallels  or  mines!  A  siege  in 
the  open!" 

Firio  did  not  understand  much  about  parallels  or 
mines  or,  for  that  matter,  about  sieges;  but  he  could 
see  the  smile  fading  from  Jack's  lips  and  could  com- 


380  OVER  THE  PASS 

prehend  that  the  future  of  which  Jack  was  speaking 
was  very  far  from  another  prospect,  which  was  imme- 
diate and  vivid  in  his  mind. 

"But  you  must  fight  Leddy!  Si,  si!  You  must 
fight  Leddy  first!" 

"Then  I  must,  I  suppose,"  said  Jack,  absently. 
"All  things  in  their  turn  and  time." 

"SI!"  answered  Firio.  All  things  in  their  turn 
and  time!  This  desert  truth  was  bred  in  him  through 
his  ancestry,  no  less  than  in  the  Eternal  Painter  him- 
self. 

Again  the  silence  of  the  morning  darkness,  with  all 
the  stars  twinkling  more  faintly  and  some  slipping 
from  their  places  in  the  curtain  into  the  deeper  recesses 
of  the  broad  band  of  night  on  the  surface  of  the  rolling 
ball.  The  plodding  hoofs  kept  up  their  regular  beat 
of  the  march  of  their  little  world  of  action  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Infinite;  plodding,  plodding  on  into  the 
dawn  which  sent  the  last  of  the  stars  in  flight,  while 
the  curtain  melted  away  before  blue  distances  swim- 
ming with  light.  Still  bareheaded,  Jack  looked  into 
the  face  of  the  sun  which  heaved  above  an  irregular 
roof  of  rocks.  It  blazed  into  the  range  on  the  other 
side  of  the  valley.  It  slaked  its  thirst  with  the  slight 
fall  of  dew  as  a  great,  red  tongue  would  lick  up  crumbs. 
Sun  and  sky,  cactus  and  sagebrush,  rock  and  dry 
earth  and  sand,  that  was  all.  Nowhere  in  that  stretch 
of  basin  that  seemed  without  end  was  there  a  sign 
of  any  other  horseman  or  of  human  life. 

But  at  length,  as  they  rode,  their  eyes  saw  what 
only  eyes  used  to  desert  reaches  could  see,  that  the 
speck  in  the  distance  was  not  a  cactus  or  even  two  or 
three  cacti  in  line,  but  something  alive  and  moving. 


AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE          381 

Perceptibly  they  were  gaining  on  it,  while  it  developed 
into  two  riders  and  a  pack  animal  in  single  file.  Now 
Jack  and  Firio  were  coming  into  a  region  of  more 
stunted  vegetation,  and  soon  the  two  figures  emerged 
into  a  stretch  of  gray  carpet  on  which  they  were  as 
clearly  silhouetted  as  a  white  sail  on  a  green  sea. 

"Very  thick  sand  there — five  or  six  miles  of  it. 
It  make  this  the  long  way,"  said  Firio.  "They  call 
it  the  apron  of  hell  to  fools  who  ride  at  noon. " 

"And  beyond  that  how  many  miles  to  the  water- 
hole?" 

"Five  or  six." 

But  Firio  knew  a  way  around  where  the  going  was 
good.  It  made  a  difference  of  two  or  three  miles  in 
distance  against  them,  but  two  or  three  times  that  in 
their  favor  in  time  and  the  strength  taken  out  of  their 
ponies. 

"How  long  will  Prather  be  in  getting  through  the 
sand?"  Jack  asked. 

Firio  squinted  at  the  objects  of  their  pursuit  for  a 
while,  as  if  he  wanted  to  be  exact. 

"Almost  as  many  hours  as  miles,"  he  said. 

Near  the  zenith  now,  the  sun  was  a  bulging  furnace 
eye,  piercing  through  shirts  into  the  flesh  and  sucking 
the  very  moisture  of  the  veins.  A  single  catspaw  was 
all  that  the  Eternal  Painter  had  to  offer  over  that 
basin  shut  in  between  the  long,  jagged  teeth  of  the 
ranges  biting  into  the  steel-blue  of  the  sky.  The 
savage,  merciless  hours  of  the  desert  day  approached; 
the  hours  of  reckoning  for  unknowing  and  unpre- 
pared travellers. 

Jag  Ear's  bells  had  a  faint  plaintiveness  at  intervals 
and  again  their  jingling  was  rapid  and  hysterical,  as 


382  OVER  THE  PASS 

he  tried  to  make  up  the  distance  lost  through  a  lapse 
in  effort.  He  had  ceased  altogether  to  wiggle  the 
sliver  of  ear — the  baton  with  which  he  conducted  his 
orchestra — because  this  was  clearly  a  waste  of  energy. 
P.  D.'s  steps  still  retained  their  dogged  persistence, 
but  their  regular  beat  was  slower,  like  that  of  a  clock 
that  needs  winding.  His  head  hung  low.  Wrath 
of  God  was  no  more  and  no  less  melancholy  than  when 
he  was  rusticating  in  Jack's  yard.  It  seemed  as  if 
his  sad  visage,  so  reliably  and  grandly  sad,  might  still 
be  marching  on  toward  the  indeterminate  line  of  the 
horizon  when  his  legs  were  worn  off  his  body. 

"Firio,  you  brown  son  of  the  sun,"  said  Jack,  with 
a  sudden  display  of  his  old-time  trail  imagery,  "you 
prolix,  garrulous  Firio,  you  knew!  You  had  the 
great  equine  trio  ready,  and  look  at  the  miles  they 
have  done  since  sunset  to  prove  it!  You,  P.  D.,  favor- 
ite trooper  of  our  household  cavalry!  You,  Wrath 
of  God,  don't  be  afraid  to  make  an  inward  smile,  for 
your  face  will  never  tell  on  you!  You,  Jag  Ear,  beat 
a  tattoo  with  the  fragment  of  the  gothic  glory  of  bur- 
rohood,  for  we  rest,  to  go  on  all  the  faster  when  the 
heat  of  the  day  is  past!" 

While  Prather  and  Nogales  were  riding  over  hell's 
apron,  their  pursuers  had  saddles  off  hot,  moist  backs, 
over  which  knowing  hands  were  run  to  find  no  sores. 
After  they  had  eaten,  P.  D.  and  Wrath  of  God  and 
Jag  Ear  stood  in  drooping  relaxation  which  would 
make  the  most  of  every  moment  of  respite.  Jack  and 
Firio,  with  a  blanket  fastened  to  the  rifles  as  standards, 
made  a  patch  of  shade  in  which  they  lay  down. 

"Have  a  nap,  Firio,"  said  Jack.  "I  will  wake 
you  when  it  is  time  to  start. " 


AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE          383 

"And  you — you  no  sleep?"  asked  Firio. 

"I  could  not  sleep  to-day,"  Jack  answered.  "I 
don't  feel  as  if  I  could  sleep  until  I've  seen  Prather 
and  heard  his  story — my  story — Firio!"  And  he 
lay  with  eyes  half  closed,  staring  at  the  steel  blue 
overhead. 

It  was  well  after  midday  when  they  mounted  for 
the  remainder  of  the  journey.  The  Eternal  Painter 
was  shaking  out  the  silvery  cloud-mist  of  his  beard 
across  a  background  that  had  a  softer,  kindlier,  deeper 
blue.  The  shadows  of  the  ponies  and  their  riders 
and  Jag  Ear  and  his  pack  no  longer  lay  under  their 
bellies  heavily,  but  were  stretched  out  to  one  side  by 
the  angle  of  the  sun,  in  cheerful,  jogging  fraternity. 
Prather  and  Nogales  had  again  become  only  a  speck. 

"Do  you  think  that  they  are  out  of  the  sand?" 
asked  Jack. 

"Very  near,"  Firio  answered. 

"Their  ponies  had  a  whole  night's  rest — we  must 
not  forget  that,"  said  Jack;  "and  they  must  be  in  a 
hurry,  for  certainly  Nogales  had  sense  enough  to  rest 
over  noon." 

"Quien  sabe!"  answered  Firio.  "But  we  catch 
them— si,  si!" 

Leading  the  way,  Firio  turned  toward  the  eastern 
range  until  he  came  to  a  narrow  tongue  of  shale  almost 
as  hard  to  the  hoofs  as  asphalt,  that  ran  like  a  shoal 
across  that  sea  of  sand.  Rest  had  given  the  great 
equine  trio  renewed  life.  P.  D.,  reduced  in  rank  to 
second  place,  could  not  think  of  allowing  more  than  a 
foot  between  his  muzzle  and  the  tail  of  Wrath  of  God, 
who  was  bound  to  make  up  the  time  he  had  lost  in 
pursuit  of  the  horizon.  Another  hypothesis  of  Jack's 


384  OVER  THE  PASS 

as  to  the  cause  of  Wrath  of  God's  melancholy  was 
that  solemn  Covenanter's  inability  to  get  any  nearer 
to  the  edge  of  the  earth.  Once  he  could  poke  his 
nose  through  the  blue  curtain  and  see  what  was  on 
the  other  side,  the  satisfaction  of  his  eternal  curiosity 
might  have  made  him  a  rollicking  comedian.  As 
for  Jag  Ear,  his  baton  was  once  more  conducting  his 
orchestra  in  spirited  tempo.  He,  who  was  nearest 
of  all  three  in  heart  to  Firio,  might  well  have  been 
saying  to  himself:  "I  knew!  I  knew  we  were  not 
going  through  the  sand!  Firio  and  I  knew!" 

So  rapidly  were  they  gaining  that,  when  past  the 
sand  and  they  turned  back  westward,  it  was  only  a 
question  of  half  an  hour  or  so  to  come  up  with  Prather 
and  Nogales.  Nogales  had  been  riding  ahead;  but 
now  Prather,  after  gazing  over  his  shoulder  for  some 
time  at  his  pursuers,  took  the  lead.  He  was  urging 
his  horse  as  if  he  would  avoid  being  overtaken.  Evi- 
dently Nogales  did  not  share  that  desire,  for  he  let 
Prather  go  on  alone.  But  Prather's  horse  was  too 
tired  after  its  effort  in  the  sand  and  he  halted  and 
waited  until  Nogales,  at  a  slow  walk,  closed  up  the 
gap  between  them,  when  they  proceeded  at  their  old, 
weary  gait. 

As  Jack  and  Firio  came  within  hailing  distance, 
both  Prather  and  Nogales  glanced  at  them  sharply; 
but  no  word  was  spoken  on  either  side.  The  absence 
of  any  call  between  these  isolated  voyagers  of  the 
desert  sea  was  strangely  unlike  the  average  desert 
meeting.  Prather  and  Nogales  did  not  look  back 
again,  not  even  when  Jack  and  Firio  were  very  near. 
A  neigh  by  P.  D.,  a  break  into  a  trot  by  him  and 
Wrath  of  God,  and  Firio  was  saying  to  Nogales: 


AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE          385 

"You  went  right  through  the  sand!" 

"Si!"  answered  Pedro,  with  a  grin. 

Still  Prather  did  not  so  much  as  turn  his  head  to 
get  a  glimpse  of  Jack,  nor  did  he  offer  any  sign  of 
knowledge  of  Jack's  presence  when  Jack  reined  along- 
side him  so  close  that  their  stirrup  leathers  were  brush- 
ing. Prather  was  gazing  at  the  desert  exactly  in 
front  of  him,  the  reins  hanging  loose,  almost  out  of 
hand.  His  horse  was  about  spent,  if  not  on  the  point 
of  foundering.  Jack  was  so  near  the  mole  on  the 
cheek  of  the  peculiar  paleness  that  never  tans  that 
by  half  extending  his  arm  he  might  have  touched  it. 
After  all,  it  was  only  a  raised  patch  of  blue,  a  blemish 
removable  by  the  slightest  surgical  operation  which  its 
owner  must  have  preferred  to  retain. 

Firio  and  Nogales,  also  riding  side  by  side,  were 
also  silent.  There  was  no  sound  except  Jag  Ear's 
bells,  now  sunk  to  a  faint  tinkle  in  keeping  with  the 
slow  progress  of  Prather's  beaten  horse.  Looking 
at  Prather's  hands,  Jack  was  thinking  of  another  pair 
of  hands  amazingly  like  them.  In  the  uncanniness 
of  its  proximity  he  was  imagining  how  the  profile 
would  look  without  the  birthmark,  and  he  found  him- 
self grateful  for  the  silence,  which  spoke  so  powerfully 
to  him,  in  the  time  that  it  provided  for  bringing  his 
faculties  under  control. 

"How  do  you  do?"  he  said  at  last,  pleasantly. 

Probably  the  silence  had  been  equally  welcome  to 
Prather  in  charting  his  own  course  in  the  now  unavoid- 
able interview.  He  looked  around  slowly,  and  he 
was  smiling  with  a  trace  of  the  satire  that  Jack  had 
seen  in  the  elevator,  but  smiling  watchfully  in  a  way 
that  covers  the  apprehension  of  a  keen  glance.  And 


386  OVER  THE  PASS 

he  saw  features  that  were  calm  and  eyes  that  were 
still  as  the  sky. 

"How  do  you  do?"  he  answered;  and  paused  as 
one  who  is  about  to  slip  a  point  of  steel  home  into  a 
scabbard.  "How  do  you  do,  brother?"  he  added, 
as  if  uttering  a  shibboleth  that  could  protect  him  from 
any  physical  violence. 

"Brother!  Brother!  Yes!"  repeated  Jack,  with 
dry  lips. 

This  shaping  of  conviction  into  fact  so  nakedly,  so 
coolly,  made  all  the  desert  and  the  sky  swim  before 
him  in  kaleidoscopic  patches  of  blue  and  gray,  shot 
with  zigzag  flashes.  He  half  reeled  in  the  saddle; 
his  hands  gripped  the  pommel  to  hold  himself  in  place. 
It  was  as  if  a  long  strain  of  nervous  tension  had  come 
to  an  end  with  a  crack.  Prather's  smile  took  a  turn 
of  deeper  satisfaction.  It  was  like  John  Wingfield, 
Sr.'s,  after  Jack  had  left  the  library. 

"This  is  the  first  time  we  have  ever  met  to  speak," 
said  Prather,  easily. 

"Yes!"  assented  Jack,  the  gray  settling  back  into 
desert  and  the  blue  into  sky  and  the  zigzag  flashes 
becoming  only  the  brilliance  of  late  afternoon  sunshine. 

"Certainly  it  is  time  that  we  got  acquainted, 
brother,"  said  Prather. 

"  It  is ! "  agreed  Jack.  "  It  is  time  that  I  knew  your 
story!" 

"Which  you  have  hardly  heard  from  your — I  mean, 
our  father!"  The  pause  between  the  "your"  and  the 
"our"  was  made  with  an  appreciative  significance. 
"Well,  you  see,  I  was  the  brother  who  had  the  mole 
on  his  cheek!" 

"Yes — pitifully  yes!"  said  Jack,  with  a  kind  of 


AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE          387 

horror  at  the  expression  of  this  face  in  his  father's 
likeness,  no  less  than  at  the  words. 

"Why,  no!  I've  often  thought  of  you  rather  piti- 
fully!" said  Prather. 

"You  well  might!"  Jack  answered,  feelingly.  "We 
may  well  share  a  common  pity  for  each  other." 

There  was  no  sign  that  John  Prather  subscribed 
to  the  sentiment  except  in  a  certain  quizzical  turn  of 
his  lips,  as  he  looked  away. 

"Yes,  the  story  has  been  kept  from  me.  I  have 
come  for  it!"  said  Jack. 

"That  is  raking  out  the  skeletons.  But  why  not 
rake  out  our  skeletons  together,  you  and  I?"  said 
Prather. 

It  was  clear  that  he  enjoyed  the  prospect  as  an 
opportunity  for  retributive  enlightenment. 

"To  begin  with,  I  have  the  rights  of  primogeniture 
in  my  favor,"  he  said.  "I  was  born  a  day  before  you 
were,  in  the  same  city  of  New  York.  My  mother's 
name  was  not  down  in  the  telephone  list  as  Mrs. 
Wingfield,  however — I  look  at  it  all  philosophically, 
you  understand — and  it  was  just  that  which  made 
the  difference  between  you  and  me,  outside  of  the 
difference  of  our  natures.  But  I  am  proud  of  my 
birth  on  both  sides,  in  my  own  way.  My  mother 
was  won  without  marriage  and  she  was  true  to  father. 
A  woman  of  real  ability,  my  mother!  She  was  well 
suited  to  be  John  Wingfield's  wife;  better,  I  think,  in 
the  practical  world  of  materialism  than  your  mother. 
By  a  peculiar  coincidence,  unknown  to  father,  my 
mother  called  in  Dr.  Bennington.  So  you  and  I  have 
a  further  bond,  in  that  the  same  doctor  brought  us 
into  the  world." 


388  OVER  THE  PASS 

"And  my  mother  must  have  known  this!"  Jack 
exclaimed,  in  racking  horror. 

At  last  the  cause  of  her  exile  was  clear  in  all  its  grisly 
monstrousness;  the  source  of  the  pain  in  her  eyes  in 
the  portrait  had  been  traced  home.  Again  he  saw 
her  white  and  trembling  when  she  returned  to  the 
house  in  Versailles  to  find  a  visitor  there;  and  now 
he  realized  the  fulness  of  her  relief  when  the  frail  boy 
said  that  he  did  not  like  his  father.  Her  travels  had 
spoken  the  restlessness  of  flight  in  search  of  oblivion 
to  the  very  fact  of  his  paternity.  The  "I  give!  I 
give!"  of  the  portrait  was  the  giving  of  the  infinity 
of  her  fine,  sensitive  being  to  him  to  make  him  all 
hers.  His  feeling  which  had  held  him  on  the  desert 
when  he  should  have  gone  home,  that  feeling  of  literal 
revulsion  toward  his  inheritance,  was  a  thing  born  in 
him  which  had  grown  under  her  caresses  and  her 
training.  She  had  been  living  solely  for  him  to  that 
last  moment  when  the  book  dropped  out  of  her  hand; 
and  the  incarnation  of  that  which  had  killed  her  was 
riding  beside  him  now  in  the  flesh.  He  felt  a  weaving 
of  his  muscles,  a  tightening  of  his  nerves,  as  if  waiting 
on  the  spark  of  will,  and  all  the  strength  that  he  had 
built  in  the  name  of  the  store  was  madly  tempted. 
But  no!  John  Prather  was  not  to  blame,  any  more 
than  himself.  He  would  listen  to  John  Prather,  as 
justice  listens  to  evidence,  and  endure  his  stare  to 
the  end. 

"Yes,  your  mother  knew,"  continued  Prather. 
"My  mother  made  a  point  of  having  her  know.  That 
was  part  of  my  mother's  own  bitterness.  That  was 
her  teaching  to  me  from  the  first.  She  had  no  illu- 
sions. She  knew  the  advantages  and  the  disadvan- 


AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE          389 

tages  of  her  position.  She  was  and  is  one  of  the  few 
persons  in  the  world  of  whom  my  father  is  a  little 
afraid." 

"Then  she  still  lives?"  asked  Jack  sharply. 

"  Yes,  she  is  in  California, "  Prather  returned.  "  She 
often  referred  to  the  mole  on  my  cheek  as  the  symbol 
of  my  handicap  in  the  world  of  convention.  'But 
for  the  mole,  Jack,  you  would  have  the  store,'  she 
often  said.  It  delighted  her  that  I  had  my  father's 
face.  As  I  grew  older  the  resemblance  became  more 
marked.  I  could  see  that  I  pleased  my  father  with 
my  practical  ideas  of  life,  which  I  developed  when 
quite  young.  He  saw  to  it  that  my  mother  and  I 
lived  well  and  that  I  went  to  a  good  school.  From 
my  books  I  drew  the  same  lesson  as  from  my  peculiar 
inheritance;  the  lesson  that  my  mother  was  always 
inculcating.  'A  bank  account,'  she  would  repeat, 
'will  erase  even  a  mole  patch  on  the  cheek.  It  is  the 
supreme  power  that  will  carry  you  anywhere,  Jack. 
You  must  make  money!' 

"When  father  came  to  see  her  he  would  talk  with 
a  candor  with  which  I  am  sure  he  never  talked  to  your 
mother.  He  would  tell  of  his  successes,  revealing 
the  strategy  and  system  by  which  they  were  won, 
finding  her  both  understanding  and  sympathetic. 
I  became  a  little  blade  that  delighted  to  get  sharp 
against  his  big  blade  by  asking  him  questions.  He 
did  not  want  me  about  the  store,  and  this  was  one 
of  the  things  in  which  my  mother  humored  him.  She 
knew  just  when  to  humor  and  just  when  to  threaten 
the  play  of  the  strong  card  which  she  always  held. 

"All  the  while  her  ambition  was  laying  its  plans. 
It  was  that  I  should  have  the  Wingfield  store  one 


390  OVER  THE  PASS 

day,  myself.  Out  of  school  hours  I  would  range  the 
other  department  stores.  You  see,  I  had  not  only 
inherited  my  father's  face  more  strikingly  than  you 
had,  but  also  his  talents.  I  spent  the  summer  vaca- 
tions of  my  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  years  in  a  store. 
I  won  the  attention  of  my  superiors  and  promise  of 
promotion.  I  foresaw  the  day  when  I  should  so  prove 
my  ability  that  father  would  take  me  into  his  own 
store,  and  then,  gradually,  I  would  make  my  place 
secure,  while  you  were  idling  about  Europe.  And 
in  those  days  you  were  frail  and  I  was  vigorous. 

"There  was  no  mistaking  that  father's  sense  of 
convention  was  the  one  thing  that  stood  between  him 
and  my  desire.  He  feared  the  world's  opinion  if  the 
truth  became  known,  and  deep  down  in  heart  he 
could  never  get  over  the  pride  of  having  married  into 
your  mother's  family.  You  had  very  good  blood  on 
the  maternal  side,  as  they  say,  while  my  mother  had 
begun  in  the  cloak  department  and  was  self-made, 
like  father.  Again,  I  was  so  truly  his  son  in  every 
instinct  that  he  may  have  been  a  little  jealous  of  me. 
Father  does  not  like  to  think  that  any  other  man 
was  ever  quite  as  great  as  he  is.  I  confess  that  is  the 
way  I  feel,  too.  That  is  what  life  is,  after  all — it  is 
yourself.  Yes,  I  saw  the  store  as  mine — surely  mine, 
with  time!" 

Prather's  reins  lay  across  the  pommel  of  the  saddle 
drawn  taut  by  the  drooping  head  of  his  horse,  which 
was  barely  dragging  one  foot  after  another.  He 
gave  Jack  a  glance  of  flashing  resentment  and  then, 
in  his  first  impulse  of  real  emotion,  made  a  fist  of 
one  hand  and  drove  it  angrily  into  the  palm  of  the 
other  before  continuing. 


AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE          391 

"Then  father  went  to  Europe  to  bring  you  home. 
He  had  decided  for  the  son  of  convention,  the  son 
of  blood!  Though  self-made,  he  was  for  family  as 
against  talent.  Besides,  it  was  a  victory  for  him. 
At  last  you  were  his.  After  your  return  there  was 
a  scene  between  mother  and  him,  a  cool,  bitter  argu- 
ment. He  defied  her  to  play  her  last  card.  He  said 
that  you  knew  the  truth  and  that  she  could  at  best 
only  make  a  row.  And  he  wanted  us  out  of  New 
York;  the  place  for  me  was  a  new  country.  He  would 
make  us  a  handsome  allowance.  So  my  mother 
agreed  to  his  terms  and  we  went  to  the  Pacific  coast. 
There  I  was  to  enter  one  of  the  colleges.  My  mother 
wanted  me  to  have  a  college  education,  you  see.  The 
last  meeting  between  father  and  me  was  very  inter- 
esting, blade  playing  on  blade.  He  really  hated  to 
let  me  go,  for  by  this  time  he  knew  how  hopeless  you 
were.  He  embraced  me  and  said  that  I  would  get 
on,  anyway.  I  told  him  that  the  only  trouble  was 
that  while  I  was  the  real  son,  I  had  a  mole  on  my 
cheek. 

"The  West  was  best.  There  we  could  claim  the 
favor  of  convention,  Mrs.  Prather  and  her  son.  I 
matriculated  at  Stanford,  but  I  saw  nothing  in  it  for 
me.  It  was  all  dream  stuff.  Greek  and  Latin  don't 
help  in  building  a  fortune.  They  handicap  you  with 
the  loss  of  time  it  takes  to  learn  them,  at  least;  and  I 
meant  to  be  worth  a  million  before  I  was  thirty.  Now 
I  know  that  I  shall  be  worth  two  or  three  or  four 
millions  at  thirty,  if  all  goes  as  I  plan.  So  I  cut 
college  and  broke  for  Goldfield.  I  ran  a  store  and 
was  a  secret  partner  in  a  saloon  that  paid  better  than 
the  store.  I  was  in  the  game  morning,  noon,  and 


392  OVER  THE  PASS 

night;  it  beat  marching  to  class  to  recite  Horace  and 
fiddle  with  the  binomial  theorem,  as  it  must  for  every 
man  who  counts  for  something  in  the  world." 

Throughout,  Prather's  tone,  except  for  the  one 
moment  of  anger,  had  been  that  of  an  even  recital  of 
facts  by  one  who  does  not  allow  himself  to  consider 
anything  but  facts  in  the  judgment  of  his  position. 
At  times  he  gave  Jack  covert  glances  out  of  the  tail 
of  his  eye  and  saw  Jack's  face  white  and  drawn  and 
his  head  lowered.  Now  Prather  became  the  victim — 
so  he  would  have  put  it,  no  doubt — of  another  out- 
burst of  feeling. 

"But  it  was  not  like  having  the  store!"  he  said. 
"No,  my  heart  was  in  the  store;  and  that  morning 
when  you  saw  me  looking  down  from  the  gallery  I 
was  permitting  myself  to  dream.  I  was  thinking 
of  what  had  come  to  you,  the  fairy  prince  of  good 
fortune,  who  had  no  talent  for  your  inheritance,  and 
of  what  I  might  have  done  with  it.  I  was  thinking 
how  I  could  win  men  to  work  for  me" — and  there 
he  was  smiling  with  the  father's  charm — "and  of  the 
millions  to  come  if  I  could  begin  to  build  on  the 
foundation  that  father  had  laid.  I  saw  branches  in 
Chicago,  Boston,  Philadelphia — a  great  chain  of  stores 
all  co-ordinated  under  my  directing  hand — I  the 
;  master!" 

I  He  rubbed  the  palms  of  his  hands  together  as  he  had 
over  the  scintillation  of  the  jewelry  counters.  Though 
Jack  had  not  looked  around,  his  ear  recognized  that 
crisp  sound  of  exultant  power. 

"Yes,"  Jack  murmured  thoughtfully,  as  if  inviting 
Prather  to  go  on  with  anything  further  he  might  have 
to  say. 


AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE          393 

"All  mine — mine!"  Prather  concluded,  in  a  sort  of 
hypnosis  with  his  own  picture. 

Jack  still  stared  at  the  earth,  his  profile  limned  in 
gold  and  the  side  of  his  face  toward  Prather  in  shadow. 
They  were  nearing  the  clump  of  cotton-woods  around 
the  water-hole  at  the  base  of  a  tongue  of  the  range 
which  ran  out  into  the  desert,  and  Firio  rode  up  to 
whisper  in  Spanish: 

"Sefior  Jack,  see  there!    Horsemen!" 

Jack  raised  his  head  with  a  returning  sense  of  his 
surroundings  to  see  some  mounted  men,  eight  in  all 
he  counted,  riding  along  the  range  trail  a  half  mile 
nearer  the  water-hole  than  themselves.  Their  horses 
had  the  gait  of  exhaustion  after  a  long,  hard  ride. 

"You  know  who  it  is?"  Firio  whispered. 

"Yes,"  Jack  answered.  "They  had  the  better 
trail  and  have  outridden  us.  All  right,  Firio!" 

"Leddy — Pete  Leddy  and  some  of  his  men!"  ex- 
claimed Prather,  shading  his  eyes  to  watch  the  file  of 
figures  now  passing  under  the  cotton-woods.  It  seemed 
to  relieve  him.  "I  suppose  he  came  on  my  account," 
he  added,  nodding  to  Nogales. 

"Yes, "  said  Nogales,  with  a  grin.  He  always  either 
grinned  or  his  face  had  a  half  savage  impassive- 
ness. 

"I  wonder  if  Leddy  thought  I  was  in  danger,"  and 
Prather  gave  Jack  a  knowing  glance  of  satisfaction. 
"We  shall  all  camp  together,"  he  added,  smiling. 

Jack  did  not  answer  for  a  moment.  He  was  intent 
on  the  cotton-woods.  Leddy  and  his  companions  ap- 
peared on  the  other  side,  the  figures  of  riders  and 
horses  bathed  in  the  sunset  glow.  Then  they  dis- 
appeared as  if  the  earth  had  swallowed  them  up. 


394  OVER  THE  PASS 

"They  are  going  on!  They  are  not  going  to  stop!" 
said  Prather  apprehensively. 

"There  is  a  basin  beyond  the  water-hole  and  the 
seepage  makes  a  little  pasture,"  Jack  explained. 
"You  will  see  them  back  in  a  moment." 

"Oh,  yes!"  said  Prather,  with  a  thrill  in  his  voice; 
and  again  the  palms  of  his  hands  were  making  that 
refrain  of  delight.  "But  I  have  told  my  story,"  he 
resumed.  "Now  may  I  ask  you  a  question?  Why 
have  you  come  back?" 
(  Jack  looked  around  frankly  and  dispassionately. 

"To  save  Little  Rivers  from  you!  I  understand 
that  you  have  secured  the  water  rights. " 
1  "Well,  then,  I  have!"  declared  Prather,  confidently, 
"  and  I  mean  to  have  the  rights  for  the  whole  valley ! " 
and  he  struck  his  fist  into  his  palm.  "You  see,"  he 
went  on,  with  another  flash  of  satire,  "it  is  not  exactly 
fair  that  you  should  have  the  store  and  Little  Rivers, 
too.  I  had  heard  of  the  possibilities  here  from  my 
friend  Leddy,  who  was  also  at  Goldfield.  A  useful 
man  in  his  place !  He  got  his  sixth  notch  there.  When 
I  came  and  looked  around  and  saw  that  here  was  the 
opportunity  I  wanted,  I  wired  father  that  in  any  fair 
division  of  territory  everything  west  of  the  Mississippi 
belonged  to  me" — he  was  showing  some  bravado  in 
his  sense  of  security  now,  when  he  saw  that  Leddy  and 
his  men  were  returning  through  the  cotton-woods  to 
the  water-hole — "and  I  should  like  to  have  you  out 
of  my  way.  I  told  him  you  were  the  picture  of  health, 
even  if  you  didn't  have  anything  in  your  head,  and 
if  you  were  ever  going  to  learn  the  business  it  was 
time  that  you  began.  But  father  is  always  careful. 
Naturally  he  wanted  to  check  off  my  report  with 


AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE          395 

another's;  for  he  didn't  want  you  back  if  you  were 
ill.  So  he  sent  Dr.  Bennington  out  to  get  professional 
confirmation  of  my  statement." 

"And  you  told  Jasper  Ewold  that  you  wanted  the 
rights  only  to  turn  them  over  to  the  water  users'  asso- 
ciation and  then  bring  in  capital  to  build  a  dam,  with 
everybody  sharing  alike  in  the  prosperity  that  was 
to  come." 

"Yes,  and  Jasper  Ewold  was  so  simple!  Well,  what 
I  told  him  was  strategy — strategy  of  which  I  think 
father  would  approve.  When  you  have  a  big  object 
in  view  the  end  must  justify  the  means.  Look  at  the 
situation !  Two  hundred  thousand  acres  of  land  wait- 
ing on  water  to  be  the  most  fertile  in  the  world !  Why, 
when  I  rode  up  the  valley  the  first  time  and  saw  what 
could  be  done,  I  was  amazed  to  think  that  such  an 
opportunity  should  be  lying  around  loose.  Little 
Rivers  was  so  out  of  the  way  that  other  promoters 
had  overlooked  it,  and  everybody  had  sort  of  taken  it 
for  granted  that  Jasper  Ewold  and  his  water  users' 
association  really  had  legal  possession.  It  was  my 
chance.  I  thought  big.  That  dam  should  be  mine. 
I  had  the  money  I  had  made  in  Goldfield,  but  it  was 
not  enough  for  my  purpose. 

"Where  should  I  turn  for  outside  capital  that  would 
not  demand  a  majority  interest  in  the  project?  I 
concluded  that  it  was  time  father  did  something  for 
me  in  return  for  giving  up  the  store.  Besides  this  call 
of  justice  I  had  another  influence  with  him.  I  was 
sure  that  when  he  told  my  mother  that  you  knew  the 
truth  he  was  making  a  statement  that  suited  his  pur- 
pose. I  was  sure  that  you  knew  nothing  of  my  story 
and  that  father  did  not  want  you  to  know  it.  I  was 
ready  to  tell  if  he  did  not  meet  my  demands. 


396  OVER  THE  PASS 

"Well,  you  know  how  he  can  talk  when  he  wants 
to  gain  a  point.  I  fancy  that  I  talked  as  well  as  father 
when  I  showed  him  how  that  dam  would  pay  for  itself 
in  five  years  in  tolls  and  twenty  per  cent  on  the  capi- 
tal after  that;  when  I  showed  him  how  a  population 
ten  times  that  of  his  store  would  have  to  take  their 
water  from  me;  when  I  showed  him  all  the  side  issues 
of  profit  from  town  sites  and  the  increase  of  values 
of  the  big  holdings  which  Leddy's  men  would  take 
up  for  me.  You  ought  to  have  seen  his  eyes  glow. 
He  could  not  withstand  his  pride  in  me.  'You  have 
the  gift,  the  one  gift!'  he  said.  I  told  him  yes,  it  was 
in  the  blood;  and  I  struck  while  the  iron  was  hot.  I 
got  an  outright  sum  from  him;  and  he  could  not  resist 
a  chance  to  share  all  that  profit  when  capital  was  to 
be  had  in  New  York  for  three  or  four  per  cent.  He 
went  in  as  silent  partner,  as  I  was  in  the  saloon  at 
Goldfield;  as  a  partner  with  a  minority  interest." 

John  Prather  paused  to  laugh  to  himself  over  his 
victory,  while  the  movement  of  palm  on  palm  was 
rapid  and  prolonged. 

"Our  arrangement  amounted  to  the  commercial 
division  of  territory  for  the  family,  which  I  had  sug- 
gested," he  went  on  with  appreciative  irony.  "You 
and  he  were  to  have  the  east  side  of  the  Mississippi 
and  I  was  to  have  the  west,  and  you  were  never  to 
know  my  story.  Publicly,  father  and  I  were  strangers 
and  quits,  and  we  came  to  this  agreement  in  the  room 
of  a  down-town  hotel. 

"The  day  before  I  started  West  I  simply  had  to 
have  a  look  through  the  store — the  store  that  I  loved 
and  that  I  had  to  lose.  Yes,  the  store  is  far  more  to 
my  taste  than  this  rough  western  life.  Naturally,  as 
my  existence  was  to  be  kept  a  secret  from  you,  when 


AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE          39? 

you  followed  me  to  the  elevator  and  tried  to  get  ac* 
quainted  I  couldn't  have  it." 

"But  as  the  elevator  descended  you  pointed  to  the 
mole,"  said  Jack. 

"Did  I?  I  suppose  that  was  an  involuntary,  in- 
stinctive pleasantry.  The  previous  evening  father  and 
I  had  had  a  farewell  visit  together.  We  went  into 
the  country." 

"The  night  after  the  scene  in  the  drawing-room!" 
Jack  thought. 

"I  knew  that  father  was  worried  because  he  had 
to  make  an  effort  to  show  that  he  was  not.  Usually 
he  can  cover  his  worries  perfectly.  He  said  that  he 
might  have  a  fight  in  order  to  keep  you  and  that  he 
very  much  wanted  you  to  stay.  But  he  did  not 
succeed,"  concluded  Prather,  fist  driving  into  palm. 
"You  came  on  the  express  after  me." 

"Because,  fortunately,  you  went  to  the  house  to 
have  a  look  at  the  ancestor!" 

"Yes,"  said  Prather.     "But  I  did  not  see  you." 

"However,  I  saw  you  from  the  landing  and  over- 
heard what  passed  between  you  and  father!" 

"No  matter!"  cried  Prather  harshly.  "I  am  pre- 
pared for  you!"  He  looked  toward  the  water-hole 
significantly.  "And  the  concession  is  mine!  The 
dam  will  be  mine!" 

"The  dam  could  be  built  and  all  the  valley  might 
bloom  without  so  much  power  passing  into  the  hands 
of  one  man,"  said  Jack. 

P.  D.  scenting  the  pasturage  and  feeling  the  pangs 
of  thirst  was  starting  forward  at  a  smarter  pace;  but 
Jack  held  him  back  to  the  snail's  crawl  of  Prattler's 
pony 


398  OVER  THE  PASS 

"Who  would  do  it?  Jasper  E wold?  Jim  Galway?" 
Prather  demanded.  "What  these  men  need  is  a 
leader.  They  don't  realize  what  I  am  doing  for  them. 
Do  they  think  I  want  to  put  in  ten  years  out  here  for 
nothing?  For  every  dollar  that  they  make  for  me 
they  are  going  to  make  one  for  themselves.  That's 
the  rule  of  prosperity.  I  am  not  robbing  them.  I  am 
taking  only  my  fair  share  in  return  for  creative  busi- 
ness genius.  The  fellows  in  Little  Rivers  who  sulk 
and  don't  get  on  will  have  only  themselves  to  thank. " 

"But  they  lose  their  independence,"  Jack  was 
arguing  quietly,  as  if  he  would  thrash  out  the  sub- 
ject. "There  are  other  things  than  money  in  this 
world. " 

"There's  nothing  much  money  won't  do!"  said 
Prather. 

"It  will  not  give  one  self-respect  or  courage  or 
moral  fibre;  it  will  not  bring  the  gift  of  poetry,  music, 
or  painting;  or  turn  a  lie  into  truth;  or  bring  back 
virtue  to  a  woman  who  has  been  defiled;  or  make  the 
courage  to  face  death  calmly." 

"  It  will  do  all  I  want ! "  Prather  answered.  "  Father 
not  having  been  true  to  his  agreement  by  keeping 
you  in  New  York,  why  should  I  keep  his  secret?  He 
breaks  faith;  I  break  faith.  It  seems  to  me  as  if  there 
were  no  escaping  the  penalty  of  my  birth.  I  no  sooner 
arrive  than  I  find  the  whole  town  knows  of  your  re- 
turn; and  not  only  that,  but  a  wire  comes  from  father 
saying  that  we  had  better  not  meet  until  he  comes." 

"Until  he  comes!    Yes,  go  on!" 

"  Well,  as  you  say,  you  are  here  to  save  Little  Rivers 
and  that  meant  an  interview  with  me,  and — well," 
again  the  palms  in  their  crisp  movement,  "before  I 


AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE          399 

started  out  I  told  Pete  Leddy  that  if  you  came  after 
me  I  should  look  to  him  for  protection,  and  it  seems 
he  is  on  time. " 

"Yes,"  said  Jack,  without  looking  at  Prather. 
All  the  while  he  had  kept  watch  on  the  water-hole, 
and  he  received  Prather's  announcement  stoically  as 
a  confirmation  of  his  suspicions. 

"So,  if  you  will  take  my  advice,  brother,  the  best 
thing  for  you  to  do  is  to  ride  back  before  we  reach 
the  water-hole,  unless  you  prefer  Leddy's  company. 
This  time  he  will  fight  you  in  his  way." 

"My  horse  is  tired  and  there  is  neither  water  nor 
feed  for  him  except  there."  Jack  stated  this  quietly 
and  stubbornly,  as  he  nodded  toward  the  cotton- 
woods.  Then  he  looked  around  to  Prather.  Sud- 
denly Prather  found  himself  looking  at  a  face  that 
seemed  to  have  only  the  form  of  that  face  by  the  side 
of  which  he  had  been  riding.  It  was  as  if  another  man 
had  taken  Jack's  place  in  the  saddle.  The  ancestor  was 
rising  in  Jack.  Prather  saw  an  electric  spark  in  Jack's 
eyes,  the  spark  of  the  high  voltage  that  made  his 
muscles  weave  and  a  flutter  come  in  his  cheeks.  "No, 
I  am  not  going  back  until  I  have  recovered  the  rights 
that  you  have  taken  from  Little  Rivers!"  he  said. 

Prather  in  sudden  confusion  realized  that  he  had 
let  his  feelings  go  too  soon.  They  were  not  yet  at 
the  water-hole,  and  he  was  within  easy  reach  of  that 
hand  working  on  the  reins  in  a  way  that  promised 
an  outburst. 

"You  think  of  physical  violence  against  me — your 
own  flesh  and  blood!"  he  said  defensively. 

He  saw  Jack  shudder  in  reaction  and  knew  that  he 
was  safe  for  the  moment.  When  Jack  looked  away 


400  OVER  THE  PASS 

at  the  water-hole  Prather's  fingers  slipped  to  his  own 
six-shooter  and  rested  there,  twitching  nervously; 
and  in  the  rear  Firio  was  watching  both  him  and 
Nogales  shrewdly. 

From  any  outward  sign  now,  Jack  might  have 
been  starting  on  another  journey  with  quiet  eager- 
ness; a  journey  that  might  end  at  a  precipice  a 
few  yards  ahead  or  at  the  other  side  of  the  world. 
Of  this  alone  you  could  be  sure  from  the  resoluteness 
of  his  features,  that  he  was  going  straight  on;  while 
Firio,  in  the  telepathy  of  desert  companionship,  under- 
stood that  he  was  missing  no  developing  detail  within 
the  narrow  range  of  vision  in  front  of  P.  D.'s  nose. 
Trusting  all  to  Jack,  Firio  was  on  wires,  ready  for  a 
spring  in  any  direction. 

They  were  coming  to  the  edge  of  a  depression  of  an 
old  watercourse  that  wound  around  past  the  cotton- 
woods  to  the  ridge  itself  and  included  the  basin  where 
Leddy  and  his  followers  had  tethered  their  horses. 
But  this  part  of  it  was  dry  sand.  The  standing  figures 
around  the  water-hole  had  sunk  down.  Jack  could 
see  them  as  lumps  in  a  row.  A  blade  of  flame  from 
the  setting  sun  fell  on  them,  revealing  the  glint  of  rifle 
barrels. 

"Firio!  Quick— down!  P.  D.,  down!"  Jack  called, 
dismounting  with  a  leap;  and  as  though  in  answer 
to  his  warning  came  the  singing  of  bullets  about  their 
ears. 

P.  D.  had  been  trained  to  sink  on  all  fours  at  a  word 
and  he  and  Jack  together  dropped  into  the  cover  of 
the  arroyo,  below  the  desert  line.  When  he  looked 
around  Firio  was  at  his  side,  still  holding  the  reins  of 
Wrath  of  God.  But  Wrath  of  God's  sturdy,  plodding 


AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE          401 

nature  had  little  facility  in  learning  tricks.  A  tiny 
stream  of  blood  was  flowing  down  his  forehead  and 
he  lay  still.  At  last,  all  in  loyal  service,  he  had  reached 
the  horizon.  His  bony,  homely,  good  old  face  seemed 
singularly  peaceful,  as  if  satisfied  with  the  reward  at 
his  journey's  end.  Jag  Ear  was  standing  beside  P.  D. 
and  Prather's  burro  next  to  him,  both  unharmed. 
Nogales's  horse  had  also  been  killed,  but  its  rider  was 
safe.  Prather  was  crawling  down  the  side  of  the 
arroyo  on  his  belly,  digging  his  hands  into  the  dirt, 
his  face  white  and  contorted  and  his  eyes  shifting  back 
and  forth  in  ghastly  incomprehension.  His  horse 
followed  him  and  sank  down  in  final  surrender  to 
exhaustion. 

By  common  impulse,  Jack  and  Firio  seized  the  rifles 
from  Jag  Ear's  pack,  while  Nogales,  a  spectator, 
squatted  beside  Prather. 

"What — what  does  it  mean?"  Prather  gasped, 
spasmodically.  "I — I — was  it  Leddy  that  fired  on 
us?" 

"Yes,"  said  Jack  over  his  shoulder,  as  he  and  Firio 
started  up  the  bank  of  the  arroyo  facing  the  water- 
hole.  "No  doubt  of  it." 

"It  was  you  they  wanted — not  me — not  me!  I — 
I 

"I  don't  know.  At  all  events,  I  do  not  mean  they 
shall  rush  us!"  Jack  answered,  as  he  and  Firio  hugged 
the  slope  with  their  rifles  resting  on  top  and  only  their 
heads  showing  above  it. 

"No!    It   couldn't   be   that   they   recognized   me. 
They  will  let  me  by !    They  expect  me ! " 
[    "Yes,  you  belong  on  their  side!"  Jack  called  back. 

"I  will  send  out  a  flag  of  truce!"  said  Prather,  bright- 


402  OVER  THE  PASS 

ening  with  the  thought.  "You,  Nogales,  take  my 
handkerchief  and  go  and  explain  to  Leddy!" 

Nogales  seemed  agreeable  to  the  suggestion.  In- 
deed, he  was  very  expeditious  in  starting.  While 
Jack  never  took  his  eye  off  the  sight  of  his  barrel, 
Nogales  walked  across  the  gleaming  interval  between 
the  two  parties  waving  Prather's  handkerchief.  Leddy 
rose  on  his  knee  watchfully,  rule  in  hand,  while  he 
spoke  with  Nogales.  Then  Nogales  started  back  with 
his  head  thrown  up  jubilantly,  but  stopped  when  he 
was  within  calling  distance  and  sang  out,  truculently: 

"Leddy  get  you  both!    He  get  everything!" 

He  turned  on  his  heel  and  soon  was  another  lump 
around  the  water-hole. 

"That  makes  nine,  Firio!"  said  Jack. 

He  smiled  in  relief  to  be  rid  of  Nogales;  smiled  in 
happy  confidence,  as  if  he  were  truly  the  ancestor's 
child. 

"Si!"  answered  Firio,  as  if  he  had  just  as  soon 
there  were  a  regiment  against  them.  He  was  happy 
beyond  words.  He  patted  his  rifle  barrel;  he  spread 
out  his  big  red  bandanna  beside  his  elbow  and  on  it 
nicely  arranged  a  couple  of  extra  charges  of  cartridges. 

Prather  remained  flat  on  the  bottom  of  the  arroyo, 
overwhelmed.  It  was  some  time  before  he  could  speak. 

"I — I  don't  understand!  It  isn't  possible!"  he 
said  finally. 

"Everything  is  possible  with  Leddy.  It  seems  that 
there  can  be  peace  between  him  and  me  in  this  valley 
in  only  one  way,"  Jack  answered. 

"But  me!  I  suppose  he  found  out  that  I — "  Pra- 
ther stopped  without  finishing  the  sentence.  "What 
am  I  to  do?"  he  asked  Jack  in  livid  appeal. 


AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE          403 

"Why,  it  is  three  against  nine,  if  you  choose!"  Jack 
answered.  "You  have  a  rifle,  and  it  is  for  your  life." 

"My  life!"  Prather  gasped,  another  wave  of  fear 
submerging  him. 

"Yes.  We  have  no  horses  with  which  to  make  our 
escape  and  we  should  be  winged  as  soon  as  we  exposed 
ourselves.  Leddy  means  that  we  shall  die  of  thirst, 
or  die  fighting." 

Through  all  this  dialogue  Jack  had  been  speaking  to 
the  head  that  lay  between  his  eye  and  a  target.  As 
Prather  reached  up  a  trembling  hand  to  take  his  rifle 
from  the  back  of  his  burro  one  of  the  lumps  around 
the  water-hole  rose,  possibly  to  change  position.  When 
it  became  the  silhouette  of  a  kneeling  man,  Jack  fired 
and  the  figure  plunged  forward  like  an  automaton  that 
had  had  its  back  broken. 

"Eight!"  whispered  Firio. 

"Duck!"  Jack  told  him;  for  a  response  instantly 
came  in  a  volley  that  kicked  up  the  dust  around  their 
heads. 

But  Jack's  rifle  lay  in  limp  hands. 

"Eight!"  he  repeated,  dazedly.  "And  I  shot  to 
kill— to  kill!" 

His  face  blanched  with  horror  at,  the  thing  that  he 
had  done.  It  seemed  as  if  the  strength  had  been 
struck  out  of  him.  He  appeared  ready  to  let  destiny 
overtake  him  rather  than  fire  again.  Then  as  in  a 
flash,  the  ancestor  in  him  reappeared  and  in  his  fea- 
tures was  written  that  very  process  of  fate  which  Dr. 
Bennington  had  said  was  in  him.  Again  his  hand 
was  firm  on  the  barrel  and  his  eye  riveted  on  the  sight, 
as  he  drew  himself  up  until  he  lay  even  with  the  bank 
of  the  arroyo. 


404  OVER  THE  PASS 

The  volley  from  the  cotton-woods  had  swept  over 
Prather's  head  at  the  instant  that  he  had  taken  hold 
of  his  rifle.  It  dropped  from  his  grasp.  He  burrowed 
in  the  sand  under  the  pressure  of  that  near  and  sin- 
ister rush  of  singing  breaths. 

"I  can't!    I  can't!"  he  said  helplessly. 

He  was  leaden  flesh,  without  the  power  to  move. 
At  his  words  Jack  glanced  back  to  see  a  dropped  jaw 
and  glassy,  staring  eyes. 

"You  are  suffering!"  exclaimed  Jack.  "Are  you 
hit?" 

"No!"  Prather  managed  to  say,  and  reached  out 
for  his  rule  in  clumsy  desperation,  as  if  he  were  feeling 
for  it  in  the  dark. 

"Take  your  time!"  said  Jack  encouragingly,  as  one 
would  to  a  victim  of  stage  fright.  "There  isn't  any 
danger  for  the  moment,  while  advantage  of  position 
is  with  us — the  sun  over  our  shoulders  and  in  their 
faces." 

The  lumps  around  the  water-hole  grew  smaller. 
Evidently,  as  a  result  of  the  lesson,  they  were  creep- 
ing backward  on  their  stomachs  to  a  less  exposed  posi- 
tion. Two  had  quite  disappeared,  or  else  the  brilliant 
play  of  light  had  melted  them  into  the  golden  carpet 
of  reflected  sunshine  on  which  they  rested.  Directly, 
Jack  saw  two  figures  creeping  over  the  rim  of  the  pas- 
turage basin. 

"So,  that's  it!"  he  said  to  Firio. 

Firio  nodded  his  understanding  of  Leddy's  plan  to 
take  them  in  flank  under  cover  of  the  arroyo. 

"We  shall  have  to  respond  in  kind!"  said  Jack. 

He  left  his  hat  where  his  head  had  been  and  began 
crawling  along  the  side  of  the  arroyo,  but  paused  to 


AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE          405 

call  to  Prather,  who,  now  that  no  bullets  were  flying, 
was  trying  the  mechanism  of  his  rifle  with  a  somewhat 
steadier  hand: 

"Prather,  if  you  could  manage  to  get  up  there 
beside  Firio  and  join  him  in  pouring  out  a  magazine 
full  at  the  right  moment,  it  would  help!  If  not,  put 
your  hat  up  there  beside  mine.  You  can  do  that  with- 
out exposing  yourself." 

Jack's  tone  was  that  of  one  who  urges  a  tired  man 
to  take  a  few  more  steps,  or  an  invalid  without  any 
appetite  to  try  another  sup  of  broth.  It  had  no  hint 
of  irony. 

"No  matter,"  said  Firio.  "Leddy  know  he  can't 
fight.  Leddy  know  there  is  only  two  of  us!"  His 
tone  was  without  satire,  but  its  sting  was  sharper  than 
satire;  that  of  an  Indian  shrug  over  a  negligible 
quantity.  It  started  Prather  on  all  fours  laboriously 
toward  him. 

"I  am  going  to  the  turn  in  the  arroyo  that  com- 
mands the  next  turn,"  Jack  explained.  "When  I 
whistle  you  empty  your  magazines.  Keep  your  heads 
down  and  fire  fast,  no  matter  if  not  accurately,  so  as 
to  disturb  their  aim  at  me!" 

"Si!"  said  Firio.  "I  know!"  No  one  could  deny 
that  he  was  having  a  very  good  time  making  war  in 
the  company  of  Senor  Jack.  "Yes,  Mister  Prather," 
he  added,  when,  after  toiling  painfully  on  his  belly 
for  the  few  feet  he  had  to  go,  Prather  lay  with  his 
stark  face  near  Firio's;  a  face  strangely  like  that  of 
John  Wingfield,  Sr.,when  he  saw  Jasper  Ewold  from 
the  drawing-room  doorway.  "For  your  life,  Mister 
Prather!  Si!  Up  a  little  more!  Chin  high  as  mine, 
so!  Eye  on  sight,  so!" 


406  OVER  THE  PASS 

Prather  obeyed  in  an  abyssmal  sort  of  shame  which, 
for  the  time  being,  conquered  his  fear,  though  not 
his  palsy;  for  his  rifle  barrel  trembled  on  its  rest. 

Meanwhile,  Jack  had  crept  to  the  bend  in  the  arroyo. 
He  was  listening.  It  would  not  do  to  show  his  head 
as  a  warning  of  his  presence.  Faintly  he  heard  men 
moving  in  the  sand,  moving  slowly  and  cautiously. 
At  the  moment  he  chose  as  the  right  one,  with  rifle 
cocked  and  finger  on  trigger,  he  gave  his  signal.  Then 
he  sprang  to  the  top  of  the  bank,  fully  exposed  to  the 
marksmen  at  the  water-hole.  For  no  half  measure 
would  do.  He  must  have  a  full  view  of  the  bottom 
of  the  next  bend.  There  he  saw  two  crawling  figures. 
He  fired  twice  and  dropped  down  with  three  or  four 
stinging  whispers  in  his  ears  and  a  second  volley  over- 
head as  he  was  under  cover.  Again  he  sprang  up  over 
the  bank  in  the  temptation  to  see  the  result  of  his 
ami.  One  of  the  would-be  flankers  lay  prostrate  and 
still,  face  downward.  The  other  was  disappearing 
beyond  the  second  bend. 

"Seven,  now!"  he  thought  miserably,  in  compre- 
hension of  the  whole  business  as  ridicule  in  human 
savagery.  "  They  won't  trouble  us  again  immediately. 
They  will  wait  on  darkness  and  thirst,"  he  concluded; 
and  called,  as  he  turned  back,  to  Firio:  "It  worked 
like  a  charm,  O  son  of  the  sun!  They  could  not  fire 
at  all  straight  with  your  bullets  flying  about  their 
heads,  disturbing  their — "  His  speech  ended  at 
sight  of  Prather,  half  rolling,  half  tumbling  down  the 
slope,  his  hands  over  his  face,  while  he  uttered  a  pro- 
longed moan. 

"Bullet  hit  a  rock  under  sand!"  said  Firio,  as  Jack 
hastened  to  assist  Prather,  who  had  come  to  a  halt  at 


AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE          407 

the  very  bottom  of  the  arroyo  and  lay  gasping  on  his 
side.  Jack  took  hold  of  Prather's  wrists  to  draw  his 
hands  away  from  the  wound. 

"My  God!  Out  here,  like  a  rat  in  a  trap!"  Prather 
groaned.  "When  I  have  all  life  before  me!  In  sight 
of  millions  and  power — a  rat  in  a  trap  out  on  this 
damnable  desert,  as  if  I  were  of  no  more  account  than 
a  rancher!" 

"Let  me  see!"  said  Jack;  for  Prather  was  holding 
his  hands  tight  against  his  face,  as  if  he  feared  that 
all  the  blood  in  his  body  would  pour  out  if  he  removed 
them.  "Let  me  see!  Maybe  it  is  not  so  bad!" 

Prather  let  his  hands  drop  and  the  right  one  which 
was  over  the  cheek  with  the  mole  was  splashed  red  be- 
tween the  fingers.  On  the  cheek  was  a  raw  spot, 
from  which  ran  a  slight  trickle.  The  mole  had  gone. 
A  splinter  of  rock,  or  perhaps  a  bullet,  with  its  jacket 
split,  ricocheting  sidewise,  had  torn  it  clean  from  the 
flesh. 

"Not  at  all  dangerous!"  said  Jack. 

"No?"  exclaimed  Prather,  in  utter  relief. 

"It  will  heal  in  a  fortnight!" 

A  small  medicine  case  was  among  the  regular  sup- 
plies that  were  always  packed  on  that  omnibus  of  a 
burro,  Jag  Ear.  While  Jack  was  bandaging  the 
wound,  Firio,  who  kept  watch,  had  no  news  to  re- 
port. 

"Nothing  matters!  They  will  get  us,  anyway!" 
Prather  moaned.  The  shock  of  being  hit  had  quite 
finished  any  pretence  at  concealing  his  mortal  fear  of 
the  outcome. 

"Oh,  I  wouldn't  say  that!  We  already  have  them 
down  to  seven!"  said  Jack  encouragingly,  as  he  made 


408  OVER  THE  PASS 

a  pillow  of  a  blanket  and  bade  Prather  rest  his  head 
on  it. 

But  he  knew  well  that  they  were  a  seven  who  had 
learned  wisdom  from  the  fate  of  their  comrades. 
From  Nogales,  Leddy  must  have  heard  of  the  loss  of 
two  horses.  At  best,  but  one  of  the  beleaguered  three 
had  any  means  of  escape.  Leddy  could  well  afford  to 
curb  his  impatience  as  he  camped  comfortably  by  the 
water-hole,  while  his  own  horses  grazed. 

The  sun  was  still  above  the  western  ridge  in  the 
effulgence  of  its  adieu  for  the  day.  Jack  was  on  his 
knee,  with  the  broad,  level  glare  full  on  him,  looking 
at  Prather,  who  was  in  the  shadow;  and  his  reflec- 
tions were  mixed  with  that  pity  which  one  feels  to- 
ward another  who  is  lame  or  blind  or  suffers  for  the 
want  of  any  sense  or  faculty  that  is  born  to  the 
average  human  being.  For  a  man  of  true  courage 
rarely  sees  a  coward  as  anything  but  a  man  ailing; 
he  is  grateful  for  nature's  kindness  to  himself.  And 
the  spark  of  John  Wingfield,  Knight,  skipping  genera- 
tions before  it  settled  on  a  descendant,  had  not  chosen 
John  Prather  for  its  favor.  The  ancestor  was  all 
Jack's. 

Prather,  in  his  agony  of  mind,  had  moments  of 
wondering  envy  as  he  watched  Jack's  changing  expres- 
sion. He  could  see  that  Jack,  in  entire  detachment 
from  his  problem  of  fighting  Leddy,  was  thinking 
soberly  in  the  silence  of  the  desert,  unconscious  in  his 
absorption  of  the  presence  of  any  other  human  being. 
Suddenly  his  eyes  opened  wide  in  the  luminousness  of 
a  happy  discovery;  his  lips  turned  a  smile  of  supreme 
satisfaction,  and  his  face  seemed  to  be  giving  back 
the  light  of  the  sun. 


AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE          409 

"It's  all  right!"  he  said.  "Yes,  everything  is  going 
to  be  all  right!" 

"How?"  asked  Prather  wistfully,  feeling  the  infec- 
tion of  the  confident  ring  of  Jack's  tone. 

"There  is  one  horse  left,"  said  Jack.  "He  is  in 
better  condition  than  Leddy  imagines.  When  dark- 
ness comes  you  can  get  away  with  him  and  by  morn- 
ing he  will  have  brought  you  to  water  at  Las  Cascadas, 
halfway  on  the  range  trail.  Then  you  will  be  quite 
safe. " 

"Yes!  Yes!"  Prather  half  rose,  his  breath  coming 
fast,  his  eyes  ravenous. 

"And  in  return  you  will  give  Little  Rivers  back  its 
water  rights!  Is  that  a  bargain?"  Jack  asked. 

"Give  up  my  concession  and  all  it  means  to  me! 
Give  it  up  absolutely — its  millions!"  objected  Prather, 
in  an  uncontrollable  impulse  of  greed. 

"King  Richard  III,  you  remember,"  Jack  declared, 
with  a  trace  of  his  old  humor  breaking  out  over  the 
new  aspect  of  the  situation,  "said  he  would  give  his 
kingdom  for  a  horse.  He  could  not  get  the  horse  and 
he  lost  both  his  kingdom  and  his  life.  If  he  had  been 
able  to  make  the  trade  he  might  have  saved  his  life 
and  perhaps — who  knows? — have  won  another  king- 
dom." 

"I  will  save  my  life!"  Prather  concluded;  but  under 
his  breath  he  added  bitterly:  "And  you  get  both  the 
store  and  Little  Rivers!"  in  the  prehensile  instinct 
which  gains  one  thing  only  to  covet  another. 

"You  have  the  papers  for  the  concession  with  you?" 
Jack  asked. 

"I— I " 

"  Yes ! "  interposed  Jack  firmly. 


410  OVER  THE  PASS 

"Yes!"  Prather  admitted. 

"And  you  have  pencil  and  paper  to  make  some 
sort  of  transfer  that  will  be  the  first  legal  step  in  undo- 
ing what  you  have  done?" 

"Yes." 

While  Prather  was  occupied  with  this,  Jack  found 
pencil  and  paper  on  his  own  account  and  by  the  light 
of  the  sun's  last  rays  and  in  the  happiness  of  one  who 
has  brought  a  story  to  a  good  end,  he  wrote  to  his 
father: 

"John  Prather  will  tell  you  how  he  and  I  met  out 
on  the  desert  before  you  came  and  of  the  long  talk 
we  had. 

"You  wanted  a  son  who  would  go  on  building  on 
the  great  foundation  you  had  laid.  You  have  one. 
He  said  that  you  wanted  to  give  him  the  store.  The 
reason  why  you  might  not  give  it  to  him  no  longer 
exists.  The  mole  is  gone.  Of  course  there  will  be  a 
scar  where  the  mole  was.  I,  too,  shall  have  to  carry 
a  scar.  But  the  means  is  in  your  power  to  go  far 
toward  erasing  his,  for  his  mother,  Mrs.  Prather,  is 
still  living. 

"So  everything  is  clear.  Everything  is  coming  out 
right.  John  Prather  and  I  change  places,  as  nature 
intended  that  we  should.  You  need  have  no  appre- 
hensions on  my  account.  Though  I  had  not  a  cent 
in  the  world  I  could  make  my  living  out  here — a  very 
sweet  thought,  this,  to  me,  with  its  promise  of  some- 
thing real  and  practical  and  worth  while,  at  which  I 
can  make  good.  I  know  that  you  are  going  to  keep 
the  bargain  that  Prather  and  I  have  made;  and  think 
of  me  as  over  the  pass  and  very  happy  as  I  write  this, 


AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE          411 

in  the  confidence  that  at  last  all  accounts  have  been 
balanced  and  we  can  both  turn  to  a  fresh  page  in  the 
ledger.  JACK.  " 

Wiien  Jack,  after  he  had  received  the  transfer,  gave 
the  letter  to  Prather  to  read  Prather  was  transfixed 
with  incredulity. 

"You  mean  this?"  he  gasped  blankly,  as  his  sur- 
prise became  articulate. 

"Yes.  You  have  quite  the  better  of  King  Richard 
— you  gain  both  the  kingdom  and  the  horse." 

"  The  store,  yes,  the  store — mine !  Mine — the  store ! " 
said  Prather,  in  a  slow,  passionate  monotone,  his  fingers 
trembling  with  the  very  triumph  of  possession  as  he 
thrust  the  letter  into  his  pocket.  "The  store,  yes, 
the  store!"  he  repeated,  amazement  mixed  with  ex- 
ultation. "But — "  his  keen,  practical  mind  was  re- 
covering its  balance;  he  was  on  guard  again.  Between 
him  and  the  realization  of  his  inheritance  lay  the 
shadow  of  the  fear  of  the  miles  in  the  night.  "  But — 
there  is  no  trick?"  he  hazarded  in  suspicion. 

"No!" 

Jack  spoke  in  such  a  way  that  it  removed  the  last 
doubt  for  Prather,  who  kneaded  his  palms  together  in 
a  kind  of  frenzy,  oblivious  of  all  except  the  moneyed 
prospect  of  the  kingdom  craved  that  had  become  a 
kingdom  won. 

"How  long  before  I  start?"  he  asked. 

"As  soon  as  the  first  darkness  settles  and  before 
the  moon  rises. " 

"  I  shall  need  some  food, "  Prather  went  on  ingrati- 
atingly. "And  they  say  wounds  bring  on  fever.  Have 
you  any  water  to  drink  on  the  way?" 


412  OVER  THE  PASS 

"We  will  fix  you  up  the  best  we  can.  I  will  divide 
what  water  remains  between  you  and  P.  D.  He  shall 
have  his  share  now  and  you  can  drink  yours  later. " 

The  sun  had  set.  The  afterglow  was  fading,  and  in 
a  few  minutes,  when  the  light  was  quite  out  of  the 
heavens,  Jack  announced  that  it  was  time  for  Prather 
to  start. 

"How  shall  I  know  the  direction?"  Prather  asked. 

"Trust  P.  D.  He  will  find  it,"  said  Jack.  He 
held  the  stirrup  for  Prather  to  mount  with  the  relief 
of  freeing  himself  at  last  from  the  clinging  touch  of 
the  phantoms.  "You  are  perfectly  safe.  In  two 
days  you  wTill  be  mounting  the  steps  of  a  Pullman  on 
your  way  to  New  York. " 

"And  you?  What — what  are  you  going  to  do?" 
Prather  inquired  hectically,  with  a  momentary  qualm 
of  shame. 

"Why,  if  Firio  and  I  are  to  have  water  to  make 
coffee  for  breakfast  we  must  take  the  water-hole!" 
Jack  answered,  as  if  this  were  a  thing  of  minor  impor- 
tance beside  seeing  Prather  safely  on  his  way.  "Be 
sure  not  to  overwater  P.  D.  after  the  night's  ride,  and 
don't  overdo  him  on  the  final  stretch,  and  turn  him 
over  to  Galway  when  you  arrive.  Home,  P.  D.! 
Home!"  he  concluded,  striking  that  good  soldier  with 
the  flat  of  his  hand  on  the  buttocks.  And  P.  D. 
trotted  away  into  the  night. 

Jack  listened  to  the  hoof-beats  on  the  soft  earth 
dying  away  and  then  crept  up  beside  Firio  on  the 
bank  and  gazed  into  the  black  wall  in  the  direction 
of  the  cotton-woods.  A  slight  glow  in  the  basin,  which 
must  be  Leddy's  camp-fire,  was  the  only  sign  of  life 
in  the  neighborhood.  The  silence  was  profound. 


AROUND  THE  WATER-HOLE          413 

He  had  not  spoken  a  word  to  Firio.  With  one  prob- 
lem forever  solved,  he  was  absorbed  in  another. 

"Leddy  drinks,  eats,  waits!"  whispered  Firio.  "If 
we  try  to  go  they  hunt  us  down!" 

"Yes,"  said  Jack. 

"And  we  not  go,  eh?    We  stay?    We  fight?" 

"For  water,  Firio,  yes!    Two  against  seven!" 

"Si!"  Firio  had  no  illusions  about  the  situation. 
"81  /"  he  repeated  stoically. 

"And,  Firio — "  Jack's  hand  slipped  with  a  quick, 
gripping  caress  onto  Firio's  shoulder.  An  inspira- 
tion had  come  to  the  mind  of  action,  just  as  a  line 
comes  to  a  poet  in  a  flash;  as  one  must  have  come  to 
the  ancestor  many  times  after  he  had  gone  into  a  tight 
place  trusting  to  his  wits  and  his  blade  to  bring  him 
out.  "And,  Firio,  we  are  going  to  change  our  base, 
as  the  army  men  say — and  change  it  before  the  moon 
rises.  Jag  Ear,  we  shall  have  to  leave  you  behind," 
he  added,  when  they  had  dropped  back  to  the  burro's 
side.  "Just  make  yourself  comfortable.  Leddy  surely 
wouldn't  think  of  killing  so  valuable  a  member  of  the 
non-combatant  class.  We  will  come  for  you,  by  and 
by.  It  will  be  all  right!" 

He  gave  the  sliver  of  ear  an  affectionate  corkscrew 
twist  before  he  and  Firio,  taking  all  their  ammunition, 
crawled  along  the  bottom  of  the  arroyo  and  up  the 
ridge  where  they  settled  down  comfortably  behind  a 
ledge  commanding  the  water-hole  at  easy  range. 

"It's  lucky  we  learned  to  shoot  in  the  moonlight!" 
Jack  whispered. 

"Si!"  Firio  answered,  in  perfect  understanding. 


XXXVII 
THE  END  OF  THE  WEAVING 

For  over  a  week  a  private  car  had  stood  on  a  siding 
at  Little  Rivers.  Every  morning  a  porter  polished 
the  brasswork  of  the  platform  in  heraldry  of  the 
luxury  within.  Occasionally  a  young  man  with  a 
plaster  over  a  wound  on  his  cheek  would  walk  up  and 
down  the  road-bed  on  the  far  side  of  the  car.  Indeed, 
he  had  worn  a  path  there.  He  never  went  into  town, 
and  any  glances  that  he  may  have  cast  in  that  direction 
spoke  his  desire  to  be  forever  free  of  its  sight.  Not 
a  train  passed  that  he  did  not  wish  himself  aboard 
and  away.  But  as  heir-apparent  he  had  no  thought 
of  endangering  his  new  kingdom  by  going  before  his 
father  went.  He  meant  to  keep  very  close  to  the 
throne.  He  had  become  clingingly,  determinedly 
filial.  At  times  the  gleam  of  the  brasswork  would 
exercise  the  same  hypnosis  over  his  senses  as  the 
scintillation  of  the  jewelry  counters  of  the  store,  and 
he  would  rub  his  hands  crisply  together. 

John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  spent  little  time  in  the  car. 
Morning  and  afternoon  and  evening  he  would  go  over 
to  Dr.  Patterson's  with  the  question:  "How  is  he?" 
which  all  Little  Rivers  was  asking.  The  rules  of 
longevity  were  in  oblivion  and  the  routine  channels 
of  a  mind,  so  used  to  teeming  detail,  had  become 
abysses  as  dark  and  void  as  the  canyons  of  the  range. 

On  the  day  of  his  arrival  in  Little  Rivers  he  found 
414 


THE  END  OF  THE  WEAVING         415 

a  town  peopled  mostly  by  women  and  children.  All  of 
the  men  who  could  bear  arms  and  get  a  horse  had 
departed,  and  with  them  Mary.  Thereby  hangs  a 
story  all  to  the  honor  of  little  Ignacio.  After  Jack 
had  ridden  away  with  his  insistent  refusal  of  assist- 
ance, apprehension  among  the  group  that  watched 
him  disappear  in  the  gathering  darkness  was  allayed 
by  reports  of  men  who  had  been  at  the  store,  where 
they  found  the  Leddyites  hanging  about  as  usual.  True, 
no  one  had  seen  either  Pete  or  Ropey  Smith,  but  Lang 
said  that  they  were  upstairs  playing  poker,  a  favorite 
relaxation  from  the  strain  of  their  intellectual  life. 

But  Ignacio  learned  from  another  Indian  in  Lang's 
service  that  Pete  and  seven  of  his  best  shots  had 
started  for  Agua  Fria  about  the  same  time  as  Jack, 
while  the  rest  of  the  gang  that  had  been  left  behind 
were  making  it  their  business  to  cover  the  leader's 
absence.  Distrusting  Ignacio,  they  locked  him  in 
a  closet  off  the  bar.  In  the  early  hours  of  the  morn- 
ing he  succeeded  in  escaping  with  his  news,  which 
he  carried  first  to  Mary.  She  was  not  asleep  when  he 
rapped  at  her  door.  It  had  been  a  night  of  wake- 
fulness  for  her,  recalling  the  night  after  her  meeting 
with  Jack  on  the  pass  before  the  duel  in  the  anoyo. 

"I  for  Senor  Don't  Care,  now!  I  for  every  devil  in 
him!  And  they  go  to  kill  him!"  was  the  incoherent 
way  in  which  he  began  his  announcement. 

In  an  hour  the  alarm  had  travelled  from  house  to 
house.  While  the  gang  slept  at  Lang's  or  in  their 
tents,  a  solemn  cavalcade  set  forth  quietly  into  the 
night,  with  rules  slung  over  their  shoulders  or  lying 
across  the  pommels  of  their  saddles,  bound  to  rescue 
Jack  Wingfield.  They  had  protested  against  Mary's 


416  OVER  THE  PASS 

going  with  all  the  old,  familiar  arguments  that  occur 
to  the  male  at  thought  of  a  woman  in  physical  danger. 

"  It  is  the  least  that  any  of  us  can  do, "  she  declared. 

"But  of  what  service  will  you  be?"  Dr.  Patterson 
asked. 

"No  one  can  say  yet,"  she  replied.  "And  no  one 
shall  stop  me!"  She  was  driven  by  the  same  impulse 
that  had  sent  her  across  the  arroyo  in  face  of  the  ruf- 
fians on  the  bank  to  Jack's  side  after  he  was  wounded. 
"My  pony  can  keep  up  with  the  best  of  yours,"  she 
added. 

Leddy  had  eight  hours'  start  on  a  two-days'  jour- 
ney. It  was  not  in  horse-flesh  to  gain  much  on  his 
fast  and  hardened  ponies.  There  was  little  chance 
that  Jack  could  hold  out  against  such  odds  as  he  must 
face,  even  if  he  had  escaped  an  ambush.  So  they 
rode  in  desperation  and  in  silence,  each  too  certain 
of  what  was  in  the  minds  of  the  others  to  make  pre- 
tence of  a  hope  that  was  not  in  the  heart. 

Their  only  stop  for  rest  was  at  Las  Cascadas  in  the 
hot  hours  of  midday.  Darkness  had  fallen  when  they 
overtook  a  solitary  horseman  coming  from  Agua  Fria. 
John  Prather  drew  rein  well  to  one  side  of  the  trail. 
He  had  a  moment,  as  they  approached,  in  which  to 
think  out  his  explanation  of  his  position. 

"It's  Prather,  and  riding  P.  D. !"  Galway  announced. 

"Where  is  Jack  Wingfield?"  came  the  merciless 
question  as  in  one  voice  from  all. 

"You  are  his  friends!  You  have  come  to  rescue 
him!"  Prather  cried. 

He  seemed  overcome  by  his  relief.  At  all  events, 
the  wildness  of  his  exclamation  in  face  of  the  force 
barring  the  trail  was  without  affectation. 


THE  END  OF  THE  WEAVING         417 

"  There  is  time?    There  is  hope?  " 

"Yes!  yes!"  gasped  Prather,  as  the  men  began  to 
surround  him. 

"  Why  are  you  here?    Why  on  his  horse?  " 

"Leddy  turned  on  me,  too!  I  was  fighting  at 
Wingfield's  side!  We  got  two  of  them  before  dark! 
Then  I  was  wounded  and  couldn't  see  to  shoot.  And  I 
came  for  help.  And  you  will  be  in  time!  He's  in  a 
good  position!" 

"I  think  you  are  lying!"  said  Galway. 

"He  couldn't  help  it!"  said  Bob  Worther. 

"How — how  would  I  have  his  horse  if  he  weren't 
willing?"  protested  Prather,  frantically. 

"By  stealing  it,  in  keeping  with  your  character!" 

"Yes!    On  general  principles  we  ought  to " 

"I  have  a  piece  of  rope!"  called  a  voice  from  the 
rear. 

"There  isn't  any  tree.  But  we  can  drop  him  over 
the  wall  of  a  chasm!" 

Spectral  figures  with  set  faces  appallingly  grim  in 
the  thin  moonlight  pressed  close  to  Prather. 

"My  God!  No!"  he  pleaded,  throatily.  "We 
fought  together,  I  tell  you!  We  drew  lots  to  see 
which  one  should  take  the  risk  of  riding  through  danger 
to  save  the  other!" 

"Lying  again!" 

"Here's  the  rope!  All  we've  got  to  do  is  to  slip 
a  noose  over  his  head!" 

"It's  a  clean  piece  of  rope,  isn't  it?"  said  the  Doge, 
in  his  mellow  voice.  "I  don't  think  it's  worth  while 
soiling  a  clean  piece  of  rope.  Come!  Taking  his 
life  is  no  way  to  save  Jack's.  Come,  we  are  losing 
time!" 


418  OVER  THE  PASS 

"Right,  Doge!"  said  the  man  with  the  rope.  "But 
it  is  some  satisfaction  to  give  him  a  scare. " 

"And  take  care  of  P.  D.!"  called  another. 

"Yes,  if  you  founder  Jack's  pony  you'll  hear  from 
us  a-plenty!" 

This  was  their  adieu  to  John  Prather,  who  was  left 
to  pursue  his  way  in  safety  to  his  kingdom,  while 
they  rode  on,  following  a  hard  path  at  the  base  of  the 
range.  Those  with  the  best  horses  took  the  lead, 
while  the  heavier  men,  including  the  Doge,  whose 
weight  was  telling  on  their  mounts,  fell  to  the  rear. 
Mary  was  at  the  head,  between  Dr.  Patterson  and 
Jim  Galway. 

The  stars  flickered  out;  the  moon  grew  pale,  and  for 
a  while  the  horsemen  rode  into  a  wall  of  blackness, 
conscious  of  progress  only  by  the  sound  of  hoof-beats 
which  they  were  relentlessly  urging  forward.  Then 
dawn  flashed  up  over  the  chaos  of  rocks,  pursuing 
night  with  the  sweep  of  its  broadening,  translucent 
wings  across  the  valley  to  the  other  range.  The  tops 
of  the  cotton-woods  rose  out  of  the  sparkling  sea, 
floating  free  of  any  visible  support  of  trunks,  and  the 
rescuers  saw  that  they  were  near  the  end  of  their 
journey. 

There  was  a  faint  sound  of  a  shot;  then  of  another 
shot  and  another.  After  that,  the  radiant,  baffling 
silence  of  daybreak  on  uninhabited  wastes,  when  the 
very  active  glory  of  the  spreading,  intensifying  light 
ought,  one  feels,  to  bring  paeans  of  orchestral  splendor. 
It  set  desperation  in  the  hearts  of  the  riders,  which 
was  communicated  to  weary  ponies  driven  to  a  last 
effort  of  speed.  And  still  no  more  shots.  The  silence 
spoke  the  end  of  some  tragedy  with  the  first  streaks 


THE  END  OF  THE  WEAVING         419 

from  the  rising  sun  clearing  a  target  to  a  waiting  marks- 
man's eye. 

Around  the  cotton-woods  was  no  sign  of  human 
movement;  nothing  but  inanimate,  dark  spots  which 
developed  into  prostrate  human  forms,  in  pantomimic 
expression  of  the  story  of  that  night's  work  done  in 
the  moonlight  and  finished  with  the  first  flush  of 
morning.  Two  of  the  outstretched  figures  were  lying 
head  to  head  a  few  yards  apart  on  either  side  of  the 
water-hole.  The  one  on  the  side  toward  the  ridge  was 
recognized  as  Jack,  still  as  death.  Another  a  short 
distance  behind  him,  at  the  sound  of  hoof-beats  looked 
up  with  face  blanched  despite  its  dark  skin,  the  parched 
lips  stretched  over  the  teeth;  but  in  Firio's  eyes  there 
was  still  fire,  as  he  whispered,  "All  right!"  before  he 
sank  back  unconscious.  A  wound  in  his  shoulder  had 
been  bandaged,  but  the  wrist  of  his  gun  hand  lay  be- 
side a  fresh  red  spot  on  the  earth. 

Jack  had  a  bullet  hole  in  the  upper  left  arm  plugged 
with  a  bit  of  cotton;  and  a  deep  furrow  across  the 
temple,  which  was  bleeding.  His  rigid  fingers  were 
still  gripping  his  six-shooter.  He  lay  partly  on  his 
side,  facing  Leddy,  who  had  rolled  over  on  his  back 
dead. 

Mary  and  Dr.  Patterson  dropped  from  their  horses 
simultaneously.  The  doctor  pressed  his  hand  over 
Jack's  heart,  to  find  it  still  beating. 

"Jack!"  they  whispered.  "Jack!"  they  called 
aloud. 

He  roused  slightly,  lifting  his  weary  eyelids  and 
gazing  at  them  as  if  they  were  uncertain  shadows  who 
wanted  some  kind  of  an  explanation  from  him  which 
he  had  not  the  strength  to  give. 


420  OVER  THE  PASS 

"We  must  drink — blaze  away,  Leddy,"  he  mur- 
mured. "I'm  coming  down  after  the  stars  go  out — 
close — close  as  you  like — we  must  drink!" 

"No  vital  hit!"  said  the  doctor;  while  Mary  bring- 
ing water  assisted  him  to  bathe  the  wounds  before  he 
dressed  them.  "No,  not  from  a  bullet!"  he  added, 
after  the  dressing  was  finished  and  he  had  one  hand 
on  Jack's  hot  brow  and  the  other  on  his  pulse. 

Then  he  attended  to  Firio,  who  was  talking  inco- 
herently: 

"Take  water-hole — boil  coffee  in  the  morning — 
quail  for  dinner,  Senor  Jack — si,  si  ! " 

When  they  had  moved  Jack  and  Firio  into  the 
shadow  of  the  cotton-woods  and  forced  water  down 
their  throats,  Firio  revived  enough  to  recognize  those 
around  him  and  to  cry  out  an  inquiry  about  Jack; 
but  Jack  himself  continued  in  a  stupor,  apparently 
unconscious  of  his  surroundings  and  scarcely  alive 
except  for  breathing.  Yet,  when  litters  of  blankets 
and  rifles  tied  together  had  been  fashioned  and  at- 
tached to  the  pack-saddles  of  tandem  burros,  as  he 
was  lifted  into  place  for  the  return  he  seemed  to  under- 
stand that  he  was  starting  on  a  journey;  for  he  said, 
disjointedly: 

"Don't  forget  Wrath  of  God — and  Jag  Ear  is  thirsty 
— and  bury  Wrath  of  God  fittingly — give  him  an 
epitaph!  He  was  gloomy,  but  it  was  a  good  gloom, 
a  kind  of  kingly  gloom,  and  he  liked  the  prospect  when 
at  last  he  stuck  his  head  through  the  blue  blanket  of 
the  horizon." 

Those  of  the  party  who  remained  behind  for  the 
last  duty  to  the  dead  counted  its  most  solemn  mo- 
ment, perhaps,  the  one  that  gave  Wrath  of  God  the 


THE  END  OF  THE  WEAVING         421 

honorable  due  of  a  soldier  who  had  fallen  face  to  the 
enemy.  Bob  Worther  wrote  the  epitaph  with  a  pencil 
on  a  bit  of  wood:  "Here  lies  the  gloomiest  pony  that 
ever  was.  The  gloomier  he  was  the  better  he  went 
and  the  better  Jack  Wingfield  liked  him;"  which  was 
Bob's  way  of  interpreting  Jack's  instructions. 

Then  Worther  and  his  detail  rode  as  fast  as  they 
might  to  overtake  the  slow-marching  group  in  trail 
of  the  litters  with  the  question  that  all  Little  Rivers 
had  been  asking  ever  since,  "How  is  he?"  A  ghastly, 
painfully  tedious  journey  this  homeward  one,  made 
mostly  in  the  night,  with  the  men  going  thirsty  in 
the  final  stretches  in  order  that  wet  bandages  might 
be  kept  on  Jack's  feverish  head;  while  Dr.  Patterson 
was  frequently  thrusting  his  little  thermometer  between 
Jack's  hot,  cracking  lips. 

"If  he  were  free  of  this  jouncing!  It  is  a  terrible 
strain  on  him,  but  the  only  thing  is  to  go  on!"  the 
doctor  kept  repeating. 

But  when  Jack  lay  white  and  still  in  his  bedroom 
and  Firio  was  rapidly  convalescing,  the  fever  refused 
to  abate.  It  seemed  bound  to  burn  out  the  life  that 
remained  after  the  hemorrhage  from  his  wounds  had 
ceased.  Men  found  it  hard  to  work  in  the  fields  while 
they  waited  on  the  crisis.  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  sat 
for  hours  under  Dr.  Patterson's  umbrella-tree  in  moody 
absorption.  He  talked  to  all  who  would  talk  to  him. 
Always  he  was  asking  about  the  duel  in  the  anoyo 
which  was  fought  in  Jack's  way.  He  could  not  hear 
enough  of  it;  and  later  he  almost  attached  himself 
to  the  one  eye-witness  of  the  final  duel,  which  had  been 
fought  in  Leddy's  way. 

When  Firio  was  well  enough  to  walk  out  he  was 


422  OVER  THE  PASS 

to  be  found  in  a  long  chair  on  Jack's  porch,  ever 
raising  a  warning  finger  for  silence  to  anyone  who 
approached  and  looking  out  across  the  yard  to  Jag 
Ear,  who  was  winning  back  the  fat  he  had  lost  in 
a  constitutional  crisis,  and  P.  D.,  who,  after  bearing 
himself  first  and  last  in  a  manner  characteristic  of  a 
pony  who  was  P.  D.  but  never  Q.,  seemed  already 
none  the  worse  for  the  hardships  he  had  endured. 
The  master  of  twenty  millions  would  sit  on  the  steps, 
while  Firio  occupied  the  chair  and  regarded  him  much 
as  if  he  were  a  blank  wall.  But  at  times  Firio  would 
humor  the  persistent  inquirer  with  a  few  abbreviated 
sentences.  It  was  out  of  such  fragments  as  this  that 
John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  had  to  piece  the  story  of  the  fight 
for  the  water-hole. 

"Senor  Jack  and  Mister  Prather,  they  no  look 
alike,"  said  Firio  one  day,  evidently  bound  to  make 
an  end  of  the  father's  company.  "Anybody  say  that 
got  bad  eyes.  Mister  Prather" — and  Firio  smiled 
peculiarly — "I  call  him  the  mole!  He  burrow  in 
the  sand,  so!  His  hand  tremble,  so!  He  act  like  a 
man  believe  himself  the  only  god  in  the  world  when 
he  in  no  danger,  but  when  he  get  in  danger  he  act 
like  he  afraid  he  got  to  meet  some  other  god!" 

"But  Jack?  Now,  after  Prather  had  gone?"  per- 
sisted the  father  greedily. 

"We  glad  the  mole  go.  It  sort  of  hurt  inside  to 
think  a  man  like  him.  He  make  you  wonder  what 
for  he  born." 

John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  half  rose  in  a  sudden  move- 
ment, as  if  he  were  about  to  go,  but  remained  in  re- 
sponse to  another  emotion  that  was  stronger  than 
the  impulse. 


THE  END  OF  THE  WEAVING         423 

"And  Jack?  He  kept  his  head!  He  figured  out 
his  chances  coolly!  Now,  that  trick  he  played  by 
going  up  on  the  ridge  under  cover  of  darkness?" 

"No  trick!"  said  Firio  resentfully,  in  instinctive 
defence.  "That  the  place  to  fight!  Seiior  Jack  he 
see  it. " 

"And  all  through  the  night  you  kept  firing?" 

"Si,  after  moon  very  bright  and  over  our  shoulders 
in  their  faces!  Si,  at  the  little  lumps  that  lie  so  still. 
When  they  move  quick  like  they  stung,  we  know  we 
hit!" 

"Ah,  that  was  it!  You  hit!  You  hit!  And  the 
other  fellows  couldn't.  You  had  the  light  with  you—- 
everything! Jack  had  seen  to  that!  He  used  his 
head!  He — he  was  strong,  strong!" 

Quite  unconsciously,  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  rubbed 
his  palms  together. 

"When  you  pleased  you  always  rub  your  hands 
same  as  Mister  Prather,"  observed  Firio. 

"Oh!  Do  I?  I—  '  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  clasped 
his  fingers  together  tightly.  "Yes,  and  the  finish  of 
the  fight— how  was  that?" 

"Sometimes,  when  there  no  firing,  Seiior  Jack  and 
Leddy  call  out  to  each  other.  Leddy  he  swear  hard, 
like  he  fight.  Senor  Jack  he  sing  back  his  answers 
cheerful,  like  he  fight.  Toward  morning  we  both 
wounded  and  only  Leddy  and  one  other  man  alive 
on  his  side.  When  a  cloud  slip  over  the  moon  and  the 
big  darkness  before  morning  come,  we  creep  down 
from  the  ridge  and  with  first  light  we  bang-bang  quick 
— and  I  no  remember  any  more. " 

"Forced  the  fighting — forced  it  right  at  the  end!" 
cried  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  in  the  flush  of  a  great  pride. 


424  OVER  THE  PASS 

"The  aggressive,  that  is  it — that  is  the  way  to  win, 
always ! " 

"But  Senor  Jack  no  fight  just  to  win!"  said  Firio. 
"He  no  want  to  fight.  In  the  big  darkness,  before 
we  crawl  down  to  the  water-hole,  he  call  out  to  Leddy 
to  make  quits.  He  almost  beg  Leddy.  But  Leddy, 
he  say:  'I  never  quit  and  I  get  you!'  'Sorry,'  says 
Senor  Jack,  with  the  devil  out  again,  'sorry — and 
we'll  see!'  No,  Senor  Jack  no  like  to  fight  till  you 
make  him  fight  and  the  devil  is  out.  He  fight  for 
water;  he  fight  for  peace.  He  no  want  just  to  win 
and  kill,  but — but — "  bringing  his  story  to  an  end, 
Firio  looked  hard  at  the  father,  his  velvety  eyes  shot 
with  a  comprehending  gleam  as  he  shrugged  his  shoul- 
ders—  "but  you  no  understand,  you  and  the  mole!" 

John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  shifted  his  gaze  hurriedly  from 
the  little  Indian.  His  face  went  ashen  and  it  was 
working  convulsively  as  he  assisted  himself  to  rise 
by  gripping  the  veranda  post. 

"Why  do  you  think  that?"  he  asked. 

"I  know!"  said  Firio. 

His  lips  closed  firmly.  That  was  all  he  had  to  say. 
John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  turned  away  with  the  unsteady 
step  of  a  man  who  is  afraid  of  slipping  or  stumbling, 
though  the  path  was  hard  and  even. 

Out  in  the  street  he  met  the  cold  nods  of  the  people 
of  a  town  where  his  son  had  a  dominion  founded  on 
something  that  was  lacking  in  his  own.  And  one 
of  those  who  nodded  to  him  ever  so  politely  was  a 
new  citizen,  who  had  once  been  a  unit  of  his  own 
city  within  a  city. 

Peter  Mortimer  had  arrived  in  Little  Rivers  only 
two  days  after  his  late  employer.  Peter  had  been 


THE  END  OF  THE  WEAVING         425 

like  some  old  tree  that  everybody  thinks  has  seen  its 
last  winter.  But  now  he  waited  only  on  the  good 
word  from  the  sick-room  for  the  sap  of  renewed  youth 
to  rise  in  his  veins  and  his  shriveled  branches  to  break 
into  leaf  at  the  call  of  spring. 

And  the  good  word  did  come  thrilling  through  the 
community.  The  physical  crisis  had  passed.  The 
fever  was  burning  itself  out.  But  a  mental  crisis 
developed,  and  with  it  a  new  cause  for  apprehension. 
Even  after  Jack's  temperature  was  normal  and  he 
should  have  been  well  on  the  road  to  convalescence, 
there  was  a  veil  over  his  eyes  which  would  not  allow 
him  to  recognize  anybody.  When  he  spoke  it  was  in 
delirium,  living  over  some  incident  of  the  past  or  of 
sheer  imagination. 

Now  he  was  the  ancestor,  fitting  out  his  ship: 

"No,  you  can't  come!  A  man  who  is  a  malingerer 
on  the  London  docks  would  be  a  malingerer  on  the 
Spanish  Main.  I  don't  want  bullies  and  boasters.  Let 
them  stay  at  home  to  pick  quarrels  in  the  alleys  and 
cheer  the  Lord  Mayor's  procession!" 

Now  his  frigate  was  under  full  sail,  sighting  the 
enemy: 

"Suppose  they  have  two  guns  to  our  one!  That 
makes  it  about  even!  We'll  get  the  windward  side, 
as  we  have  before!  Who  cares  about  their  guns 
once  we  start  to  board!" 

Another  time  he  was  on  the  trail: 

"I'll  grow  so  strong,  so  strong  that  he  can  never 
call  me  a  weakling  again!  He  will  be  proud  of  me. 
That  is  my  only  way  to  make  good. " 

Then  he  was  apprenticed  to  the  millions: 

"All  this  detail  makes  me  feel  as  if  my  brains  were 


426  OVER  THE  PASS 

a  tangled  spool  of  thread.  But  I  will  master  it — I 
will!" 

Again,  he  was  happily  telling  stories  to  the  children; 
or  tragically  pleading  with  Leddy  that  there  had  been 
slaughter  enough  around  the  water-hole;  or  serenely 
planning  the  future  which  he  foresaw  for  himself 
when  the  phantoms  were  laid: 

"I  may  not  know  how  to  run  the  store,  but  I  do 
seem  to  fit  in  here.  We  can  find  the  capital!  We  will 
build  the  dam  ourselves!" 

His  body  grew  stronger,  with  little  appreciable 
change  otherwise.  For  an  instant  he  would  seem  to 
know  the  person  who  was  speaking  to  him;  then  he 
was  away  on  the  winds  of  delirium. 

"His  mind  is  too  strong  for  him  not  to  come  out  of 
this  all  right.  It  is  only  a  question  of  time,  isn't 
it?"  insisted  the  father. 

"There  was  a  far  greater  capacity  in  him  for  suffering 
in  that  hellish  fight  than  there  was  in  Pete  Leddy," 
said  Dr.  Patterson.  "  He  had  sensitiveness  to  impres- 
sions which  was  born  in  him,  at  the  same  time  that  a 
will  of  steel  was  born  in  him — the  sensitiveness  of  the 
mother,  perhaps,  and  the  will  of  the  ancestor.  His 
life  hung  by  a  thread  when  we  found  him  and  his 
nerves  had  been  twisted  and  tortured  by  the  ordeal  of 
that  night.  And  that  isn't  all.  There  was  more  than 
fighting.  Something  that  preceded  the  fight  was  even 
harder  on  him.  I  knew  from  his  look  when  he  set 
out  for  Agua  Fria  that  he  was  under  a  terrible  strain; 
a  strain  worse  than  that  of  a  few  hours'  battle — the 
kind  that  had  been  weighing  day  after  day  on  the  will 
that  grimly  sustained  its  weight.  And  that  wround 
in  the  head  was  very  close,  very,  and  it  came  at  the 


THE  END  OF  THE  WEAVING         427 

moment  when  he  collapsed  in  reaction  after  that  last 
telling  shot.  Something  snapped  then.  There  was 
a  fracture  of  the  kind  that  only  nature  can  set.  Will 
he  come  out  of  this  delirium,  you  ask?  I  don't  know. 
Much  depends  upon  whether  that  strain  is  over  for 
good  or  if  it  is  still  pressing  on  his  mind.  When  he 
rises  from  his  bed  he  may  be  himself  or  he  may  ride 
away  madly  into  the  face  of  the  sun.  I  don't  know. 
Nobody  on  earth  can  know." 

"Yes,  yes!"  said  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  slowly. 

In  Jack's  wildest  moments  it  was  Mary's  voice  that 
had  the  most  telling  effect.  However  low  she  spoke 
he  seemed  always  to  recognize  the  tone  and  would 
greet  it  with  a  smile  and  frequently  break  into  verses 
and  scraps  of  remembered  conversations  of  his  boy- 
hood exile  in  villa  gardens.  One  morning,  when  she 
and  Dr.  Patterson  had  entered  the  room  together, 
Jack  called  out  miserably: 

"Just  killing,  killing,  killing!  What  will  Mary  say 
to  me,  now?" 

He  raised  his  hands,  fingers  spread,  and  stared  at 
them  with  a  ghastly  look.  She  sprang  to  the  bedside 
and  seized  them  fast  in  hers,  and  bending  very  close 
to  him,  as  if  she  would  impart  conviction  with  every 
quivering  particle  of  her  being,  she  said: 

"She  thinks  you  splendid!  She  is  glad,  glad!  It 
is  just  what  she  wanted  you  to  do.  She  wished  every 
bullet  that  you  fired  luck — luck  for  your  sake,  to  speed 
it  straight  to  the  mark!" 

He  seemed  to  understand  what  she  was  saying,  as 
one  understands  that  shade  is  cool  after  the  broiling 
torment  of  the  sun. 
v    "Luck  will  always  come  at  your  command,  Mary!" 


428  OVER  THE  PASS 

he  whispered,  repeating  his  last  words  when  he  left  the 
Ewold  garden  to  go  to  the  wars. 

"And  she  wants  you  to  rest — just  rest — and  not 
worry!" 

This  had  the  effect  of  a  soothing  draught.  Smil- 
ingly he  fell  back  on  the  pillow  and  slept. 

"You  put  some  spirit  into  that!"  said  the  doctor, 
after  he  and  Mary  had  tiptoed  out  of  the  room;  "a 
little  of  the  spirit  in  keeping  with  a  dark-eyed  girl 
who  lives  in  the  land  of  the  Eternal  Painter." 

"All  I  had!"  answered  Mary,  with  simple  earnest- 
ness. 

At  noon  Jack  was  still  sleeping.  He  slept  on  through 
the  last  hours  of  the  day. 

"The  first  long  stretch  he  has  had,"  ran  the  bulle- 
tin, from  tongue  to  tongue,  "and  real  sleep,  too — the 
kind  that  counts ! " 

In  the  late  afternoon,  when  the  coolness  and  the 
shadows  of  evening  were  creeping  in  at  the  doors  and 
windows,  the  doctor,  Peter  Mortimer,  the  father,  and 
Firio  were  on  the  veranda,  while  Mrs.  Gal  way  was  on 
watch  by  the  bedside. 

"He's  waking!"  she  came  out  to  whisper. 

The  doctor  hastened  past  her  into  the  sick-room. 
As  he  entered,  Jack  looked  up  with  a  bright,  puzzled 
light  in  his  eyes. 

"Just  what  does  this  mean?"  he  asked.  "Just 
how  does  it  happen  that  I  am  here?  I  thought  that 
I " 

"We  brought  you  in  some  days  ago,"  the  doctor 
explained.  "And  since  you  took  the  water-hole  your 
mind  has  been  enjoying  a  little  vacation,  while  we 
moved  your  body  about  as  we  pleased." 


THE  END  OF  THE  WEAVING         429 

"I  took  the  water-hole,  then!  And  Firio?  Firio? 
He ' 

"He  is  just  waiting  outside  to  congratulate  you  on 
the  re-establishment  of  the  old  cordial  relations  be- 
tween mind  and  body,"  the  doctor  returned;  and 
slipped  out  to  call  Firio  and  to  announce:  "He  is 
right  as  rain,  right  as  rain!"  news  that  Mrs.  Galway 
set  forth  immediately  to  herald  through  the  com- 
munity. 

As  for  Firio,  he  strode  into  Jack's  presence  with 
the  air  of  conqueror,  sage,  and  prophet  in  one. 

"Is  it  really  you,  Firio?  Come  here,  so  that  I  can 
feel  of  you  and  make  sure,  you  son  of  the  sun!" 

Jack  put  out  his  thin,  white  hand  to  Firio,  and  the 
velvet  of  Firio's  eyes  was  very  soft,  indeed. 

"Did  you  know  when  they  brought  you  in?"  Jack 
asked. 

"When  burro  stumble  I  feel  ouch  and  see  desert 
and  then  I  drift  away  up  to  sky  again,"  answered 
Firio.  "All  right  now,  eh?  Pretty  soon  you  so  strong 
I  have  to  broil  five — six — seven  quail  a  day  and  still 
you  hungry!" 

The  doctor  who  had  been  looking  on  from  the  door- 
way felt  a  vigorous  touch  on  the  arm  and  turned  to 
hear  John  Wingfield,  ST.,  asking  him  to  make  way. 
With  a  grimace  approaching  a  scowl  he  drew  back 
free  of  Jack's  sight  and  held  up  his  hand  in  protest. 

"You  had  better  not  excite  him!"  he  whispered. 

"But  I  am  his  father!"  said  John  Wingfield,  Sr., 
with  something  of  his  old,  masterful  manner  in  a 
moment  of  irritation,  as  he  pushed  by  the  doctor. 
He  paused  rather  abruptly  when  his  eyes  met  Jack's. 
A  faint  flush,  appearing  in  Jack's  cheeks,  only  empha- 


430  OVER  THE  PASS 

sized  his  wanness  and  the  whiteness  of  his  neck  and 
chin  and  forehead. 

"Well,  Jack,  right  as  rain,  they  say!    I  knew  you 
would  come  out  all  right!    It  was  in  the  blood  that — 
and  the  rest  of  John  Wingfield,  Sr.'s  speech  fell  away 
into  inarticulateness. 

It  was  a  weak,  emaciated  son,  this  son  whom  he 
saw  in  contrast  to  the  one  who  had  entered  his  office 
unannounced  one  morning;  and  yet  the  father  now 
felt  that  same  indefinable  radiation  of  calm  strength 
closing  his  throat  that  he  had  felt  then.  Jack  was 
looking  steadily  in  his  father's  direction,  but  through 
him  as  through  a  thin  shadow  and  into  the  distance. 
He  smiled,  but  very  faintly  and  very  meaningly. 

"Father,  you  will  keep  the  bargain  I  have  made," 
he  said,  as  if  this  were  a  thing  admitting  of  no  dispute. 
"It  is  fair  to  the  other  one,  isn't  it?  Yes,  we  have 
found  the  truth  at  last,  haven't  we?  And  the  truth 
makes  it  all  clear  for  him  and  for  you  and  for  me." 

"You  mean — it  is  all  over — you  stay  out  here  for 
good — you — "  said  John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  gropingly. 

Then  another  figure  appeared  in  the  doorway  and 
Jack's  eyes  returned  from  the  distances  to  rest  on  it 
fondly.  In  response  to  an  impulse  that  he  could  not 
control,  Peter  Mortimer  was  peering  timidly  into  the 
sick-room. 

"Why,  Peter!"  exclaimed  Jack,  happily.  "Come 
farther  in,  so  I  can  see  more  of  you  than  the  tip  of 
your  nose." 

After  a  glance  of  inquiry  at  the  doctor,  which  re- 
ceived an  affirmative  nod,  Peter  ventured  another 
step. 

"So  it's  salads  and  roses,  is  it,  Peter?"  Jack  con- 


THE  END  OF  THE  WEAVING         431 

tinued.  "Well,  I  think  you  may  telegraph  any  time, 
now,  that  the  others  can  come  as  soon  as  they  are 
ready  and  their  places  are  filled. " 

Thus  John  Wingfield,  ST.,  had  his  answer;  thus  the 
processes  of  fate  that  Dr.  Bennington  had  said  were 
in  the  younger  man  had  worked  out  their  end.  Under 
the  spur  of  a  sudden,  powerful  resolution,  the  father 
withdrew.  In  the  living-room  he  met  Jasper  Ewold. 
The  two  men  paused,  facing  each  other.  They  were 
alone  with  the  frank,  daring  features  from  Velasquez's 
brush  and  with  the  "I  give!  I  give!"  of  the  Sargent, 
both  reflecting  the  afterglow  of  sunset;  while  the  fea- 
tures of  the  living — John  Wingfield,  Sr.'s,  in  stony 
anger,  and  Jasper  Ewold's,  serene  in  philosophy — told 
their  story  without  the  touch  of  a  painter's  genius. 

"You  have  stolen  my  son,  Jasper  Ewold !"  declared 
John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  with  the  bitterness  of  one  whose 
personal  edict  excluded  defeat  from  his  lexicon,  only 
to  find  it  writ  broad  across  the  page.  "I  suppose 
you  think  you  have  won,  damn  you,  Jasper  Ewold!" 

The  Doge  flushed.  He  seemed  on  the  point  of  an 
outburst.  Then  he  looked  significantly  from  the 
portrait  of  the  ancestor  to  the  portrait  of  the  mother. 

"He  was  never  yours  to  lose!"  was  the  answer, 
without  passion. 

John  Wingfield,  Sr.,  recoiled,  avoiding  a  glance  at 
the  walls  where  the  pictures  hung.  The  Doge  stepped 
to  one  side  to  leave  the  way  clear.  John  Wingfield, 
Sr.,  went  out  unsteadily,  with  head  bowed.  But  he 
had  not  gone  far  before  his  head  went  up  with  a  jerk 
and  he  struck  fist  into  palm  decisively.  Rigidly, 
ignoring  everyone  he  passed  and  looking  straight 
ahead,  he  walked  rapidly  toward  the  station,  as  if 


432  OVER  THE  PASS 

every  step  meant  welcome  freedom  from  the  earth 
that  it  touched. 

His  private  car  was  attached  to  the  evening  express, 
and  while  it  started  homeward  with  the  king  and  the 
determinedly  filial  heir-apparent  to  the  citadel  of  the 
push-buttons,  through  all  the  gardens  of  Little  Rivers 
ran  the  joyous  news  that  Jack  was  "right  as  rain." 
It  was  a  thing  to  start  a  continual  exchange  of  visits 
and  to  keep  the  lights  burning  in  the  houses  unusually 
late. 

But  all  was  dark  and  silent  out  at  Bill  Lang's  store. 
After  their  return  from  Agua  Fria,  the  rescuing  party, 
Jim  Galway  leading,  had  attended  to  another  matter. 
The  remnants  of  Pete  Leddy's  gang,  far  from  offering 
any  resistance,  explained  that  they  had  business  else- 
where which  admitted  of  no  delay.  There  was  peace 
in  the  valley  of  Little  Rivers.  Its  phantoms  had  been 
laid  at  the  same  time  as  Jack's. 


XXXVIII 
THEIR  SIDE  OF  THE  PASS 

"Persiflage!    Persiflage!"  cried  the  Doge. 

He  and  Jack  were  in  the  full  tilt  of  controversy, 
Jack  pressing  an  advantage  as  they  came  around  the 
corner  of  the  Ewold  house.  It  was  like  the  old  times 
and  better  than  the  old  times.  For  now  there  was 
understanding  where  then  there  had  been  mystery. 
The  stream  of  their  comradeship  ran  smoothly  in  an 
open  country,  with  no  unsounded  depths. 

"But  I  notice  that  you  always  say  persiflage  just 
as  I  am  getting  the  better  of  the  argument!"  Jack 
whipped  back. 

"Has  it  taken  you  all  this  time  to  find  that  out? 
For  what  purpose  is  the  word  in  the  English  vocabu- 
lary? But  I'll  take  the  other  side,  which  is  the  easy 
one,  next  time,  and  then  we'll  see!  Boom!  boom!" 
The  Doge  pursed  out  his  lips  in  mock  terrorization 
of  his  opponent.  "You  are  pretty  near  yourself 
again,  young  sir, "  he  added,  as  he  paused  at  the  open- 
ing in  the  hedge. 

"Yes,  strength  has  been  fairly  flooding  back  the 
last  two  or  three  days.  I  can  feel  it  travelling  in  my 
veins  and  making  the  tissues  expand.  It  is  glorious 
to  be  alive,  O  Doge!" 

433 


434  OVER  THE  PASS 

"Now,  do  you  want  me  to  take  the  other  side  on 
that  question  so  you  can  have  another  unearned  vic- 
tory? I  refuse  to  humor  the  invalid  any  longer  and 
I  agree.  The  proposition  that  it  is  glorious  to  live 
on  such  an  afternoon  as  this  is  carried  unanimously. 
But  I  will  never  agree  that  you  can  grow  dates  the 
equal  of  mine." 

"Not  until  my  first  crop  is  ripe;  then  there  will  be 
no  dispute!" 

"That  is  real  persiflage!"  the  Doge  called  after  Jack. 

Jack  had  made  his  first  visit  to  the  Doge's  garden 
since  he  had  left  it  to  meet  Prather  and  Leddy  rather 
brief  when  he  found  that  Mary  was  not  at  home.  She 
had  ridden  out  to  the  pass.  Her  trips  to  the  pass  had 
been  so  frequent  of  late  that  he  had  seen  little  of  her 
during  his  convalescence.  Yet  he  had  eaten  her  jelly 
exclusively.  He  had  eaten  it  with  his  bread,  his  por- 
ridge, his  dessert,  and  with  the  quail  that  Firio  had 
broiled.  He  had  even  intimated  his  willingness  to 
mix  it  with  his  soup.  She  advised  him  to  stir  it  into 
his  coffee,  instead. 

When  he  was  seated  in  the  long  chair  on  the  porch 
and  she  called  to  ask  how  he  was,  they  had  kept  to 
the  domain  of  nonsense,  with  never  a  reference  to 
sombre  memories;  but  she  was  a  little  constrained,  a 
little  shy,  and  he  never  gave  her  cause  to  raise  the 
barrier,  even  if  she  had  been  of  the  mind  in  face  of  a 
possible  recurrence  of  former  provocations  while  he  was 
weak  and  easily  tired.  It  was  enough  for  him  to  hear 
her  talk;  enough  to  look  out  restfully  toward  the  gray 
masses  of  the  range;  enough  to  know  that  the  desert 
had  brought  him  oblivion  to  the  past;  enough  to  see 
his  future  as  clear  as  the  V  of  Galeria  against  the 


THEIR  SIDE  OF  THE  PASS  435 

sky,  sharing  the  life  of  the  same  community  with 
her. 

And  what  else?  He  was  almost  in  fear  of  the  very 
question  that  was  never  out  of  his  mind.  She  might 
wish  him  luck  in  the  wars,  but  he  knew  her  too  well 
to  have  any  illusions  that  this  meant  the  giving  of  the 
great  thing  she  had  to  give,  unless  in  the  full  sponta- 
neity of  spirit.  This  afternoon,  with  the  flood  of 
returning  strength,  the  question  suddenly  became 
commanding  in  a  fresh-born  suspense. 

As  he  walked  back  to  the  house  he  met  Belvy  Smith 
and  some  of  the  children.  Of  course  they  asked  for 
a  story,  and  he  continued  one  about  a  battered  knight 
and  his  Heart's  Desire,  which  he  had  begun  some  days 
previously. 

"He  wasn't  a  particularly  handsome  knight  or  par- 
ticularly good — inclined  to  mischief,  I  think,  when  he 
forgot  himself — but  he  was  mightily  in  earnest.  He 
didn't  know  how  to  take  no.  Say  'No!'  to  him  and 
push  him  off  the  mountain  top  and  there  he  was,  start- 
ing for  the  peak  again!  And  he  was  not  so  foolish  as 
he  might  seem.  When  he  reached  the  top  he  was 
happy  just  to  get  a  smile  from  his  Heart's  Desire 
before  he  was  tossed  back  again.  His  fingers  were 
worn  clear  down  to  the  first  joint  and  his  feet  off  up 
to  the  knees,  so  he  could  not  hold  on  to  the  seams  of 
canyons  as  well  as  before.  He  would  have  been  a 
ridiculous  spectacle  if  he  weren't  so  pitiful.  And  that 
wasn't  the  worst  of  it.  He  was  pretty  well  shot  to 
pieces  by  the  brigands  whom  he  had  met  on  his  travels. 
With  every  ascent  there  was  less  of  him  to  climb,  you 
see.  In  fact,  he  was  being  worn  down  so  fast  that 
pretty  soon  there  wouldn't  be  much  left  of  him  except 


436  OVER  THE  PASS 

his  wishbone.  That  was  indestructible.  He  would 
always  wish.  And  after  the  hardest  climb  of  all, 
here  he  is  very  near  the  top  again,  and " 

"And— and " 

"I'll  have  to  finish  this  story  later,"  said  Jack, 
sending  the  youngsters  on  their  way,  while  he  went 
his  own  to  call  to  Firio,  as  he  entered  the  yard: 
"Son  of  the  sun,  I  feel  so  strong  that  I  am  going  for 
a  ride!" 

"You  wear  the  big  spurs  and  the  grand  chaps?" 
Firio  asked. 

Jack  hesitated  thoughtfully. 

"No,  just  plain  togs,"  he  answered.  "I  think  we 
will  hang  up  that  circus  costume  as  a  souvenir.  We 
are  past  that  stage  of  our  career.  My  devil  is  dead." 

It  was  Firio's  turn  to  be  thoughtful. 

"Si!  We  had  enough  fight!  We  get  old  and 
sober!  Si,  I  know!  We  settle  down.  I  am  going 
to  begin  to  shave!"  he  concluded,  stroking  the  black 
down  on  his  boyish  lip. 

With  the  town  behind  him  and  the  sinking  sun  over 
his  shoulder,  the  battered  knight  rode  toward  the 
foothills  and  on  up  the  winding  path,  oblivious  of  the 
Eternal  Painter's  magic  and  conscious  only  that  every 
step  brought  him  nearer  his  Heart's  Desire.  Here 
was  the  rock  where  she  was  seated  when  he  had  first 
seen  her.  What  ages  had  passed  since  then!  And 
there,  around  the  escarpment,  he  saw  her  pony  on  the 
shelf!  Dropping  P.  D.'s  reins,  he  hurried  on  impetu- 
ously. With  the  final  turn  he  found  Mary  seated  on 
the  rock  where  she  had  been  the  day  that  he  had  come 
to  say  farewell  before  he  went  to  battle  with  the  mil- 
lions. Now  as  then,  she  was  gazing  far  out  over  that 


THEIR  SIDE  OF  THE  PASS  437 

sea  of  singing,  quivering  light,  and  the  crunch  of  his 
footsteps  awakened  her  from  her  revery. 

But  how  differently  she  looked  around !  Her  breaths 
were  coming  in  a  happy  storm,  her  face  crimsoning, 
her  nostrils  playing  in  trembling  dilation.  In  her 
eyes  he  saw  open  gates  and  a  long  vista  of  a  fair  high- 
way in  a  glorious  land;  and  the  splendor  of  her  was 
something  near  and  yielding.  He  sank  down  beside 
her.  Her  hands  stole  into  his;  her  head  dropped  on 
his  shoulder;  and  he  felt  a  warm  and  palpitating  union 
with  the  very  breath  of  her  life. 

"  What  do  I  see ! "  cried  the  Eternal  Painter.  "  Two 
human  beings  who  have  climbed  up  as  near  heaven 
as  they  could  and  seem  as  happy  as  if  they  had  reached 
it!" 

"We  have  reached  it!"  Jack  called  back.  "And 
we  like  it,  you  hoary-bearded,  Olympian  imperson- 
ality!" 

Thus  they  watched  the  sun  go  down,  gilding  the 
foliage  of  their  Little  Rivers,  seeing  their  future  in  the 
fulness  and  richness  of  the  life  of  their  choice,  which 
should  spread  the  oasis  the  length  of  that  valley,  and 
knowing  that  any  excursions  to  the  world  over  the 
pass  would  only  sink  their  roots  deeper  in  the  soil  of 
the  valley  that  had  given  them  life. 

"Jack,  oh,  Jack!  How  I  did  fight  against  the  thing 
that  was  born  in  me  that  morning  in  the  arroyo  !  I 
was  in  fear  of  it  and  of  myself.  In  fear  of  it  I  ran  from 
you  that  day  you  climbed  down  to  the  pine.  But  I 
sha'n't  run  again — not  so  far  but  that  I  can  be  sure 
you  can  catch  me.  Jack,  oh,  Jack!  And  this  is  the 
hand  that  saved  you  from  Leddy — the  right  hand! 
I  think  I  shall  always  like  it  better  than  the  left  hand! 


438  OVER  THE  PASS 

And,  Jack,  there  is  a  little  touch  of  gray  on  the  temples* 
— Mary  was  running  her  fingers  very,  very  gently 
over  the  wound — "which  I  like.  But  we  shall  be  so 
happy  that  it  will  be  centuries  before  the  rest  of  your 
hair  is  gray!  Jack,  oh,  Jack!" 


JOHN   FOX,  JR9S. 

STORIES   OF  THE   KENTUCKY  MOUNTAINS 

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THE  TRAIL   OF  THE    LONESOME  PINE. 
Illustrated  by  F.  C.  Yohn. 


The  "lonesome  pine"  from  which  the 
story  takes  its  name  was  a  tall  tree  that 
stood  in  solitary  splendor  on  a  mountain 
top.  The  fame  of  the  pine  lured  a  young 
engineer  through  Kentucky  to  catch  the 
trail,  and  when  he  finally  climbed  to  its 
shelter  he  found  not  only  the  pine  but  the 
foot-prints  of  a  girl.  And  the  girl  proved 
to  be  lovely,  piquant,  and  the  trail  of 
these  girlish  foot-prints  led  the  young 
engineer  a  madder  chase  than  "the  trail 
of  the  lonesome  pine." 

THE  LITTLE  SHEPHERD  OF  KINGDOM  COME 
Illustrated  by  F.  C.  Yohn. 

This  is  a  story  of  Kentucky,  in  a  settlement  known  as  "King- 
dom Come."  It  is  a  life  rude,  semi-barbarous;  but  natural 
and  honest  from  which  often  springs  the  flower  of  civilization. 

"  Chad."  the  "little  shepherd"  did  not  know  who  he  was  nor 
whence  he  came — he  had  just  wandered  from  door  to  door  since 
early  childhood,  seeking  shelter  with  kindly  mountaineers  who 
gladly  fathered  and  mothered  this  waif  about  whom  there  was 
such  a  mystery — a  charming  waif,  by  the  way,  who  could  play 
the  banjo  better  that  anyone  else  in  the  mountains, 

A  KNIGHT   OF  THE    CUMBERLAND. 
Illustrated   by  F.  C.  Yohn. 

The  scenes  are  laid  along  the  waters  of  the  Cumberland* 
the  lair  of  moonshiner  and  feudsman.  The  knight  is  a  moon- 
shiner's son,  and  the  heroine  a  beautiful  girl  perversely  chris- 
tened "The  Blight."  Two  impetuous  young  Southerners'  fall 
under  the  spell  of  "The  Blight's  "  charms  and  she  learns  what 
a  large  part  jealousy  and  pistols  have  in  the  love  making  of  the 
mountaineers. 

Included  in  this  volume  is  "  Hell  fer-Sartain"  and  other 
stories,  some  of  Mr.  Fox's  most  entertaining  Cumberland  valley 
narratives. 

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STORIES    OF    RARE    CHARM    BY 

GENE  STRATTQN-PQRTER 

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THE  HARVESTER 


Illustrated  by  W.  L.  Jacobs 

"The  Harvester,"  David  Langston,  is 
a  man  of  the  woods  and  fields,  who  draws 
his  living  from  the  prodigal  hand  of  Mother 
Nature  herself.  If  the  book  had  nothing  in 
it  but  the  splendid  figure  of  this  man,  wiih 
his  sure  grip  on  life,  his  superb  optimism, 
and  his  almost  miraculous  knowledge  of 
nature  secrets,  it  would  be  notable.  But 
when  the  Girl  comes  to  his  "Medicine 
Woods,"  and  the  Harvester's  whole  sound, 
healthy,  large  outdoor  being  realizes  that 
this  is  the  highest  point  of  life  which  has 
come  to  him  —  there  begins  a  romance, 
troubled  and  interrupted,  yet  of  the  rarest  idyllic  quality. 

FRECKLES.       Decorations  by  E.  Stetson  Crawford 

Freckles  is  a  nameless  waif  when  the  tale  opens,  but  the  way  in 
which  he  takes  hold  of  life;  the  nature  friendships  he  forms  in  the 
great  Limberlost  Swamp;  the  manner  in  which  everyone  who  meets 
him  succumbs  to  the  charm  of  his  engaging  personality;  and  his  love- 
story  with  "The  Angel"  are  full  of  real  sentiment. 

A  GIRL  OF  THE  LIMBERLOST. 
Illustrated  by  Wladyslaw  T.  Brenda. 

The  story  of  a  girl  of  the  Michigan  woods;  a  buoyant,  lovable 
type  of  the  self-reliant  American.  Her  philosophy  is  one  of  love  and 
kindness  towards  all  things;  her  hope  is  never  dimmed.  And  by  the 
sheer  beauty  of  her  soul,  and  the  purity  of  her  vision,  she  wins  from 
barren  and  unpromising  surroundings  those  rewards  of  high  courage. 

It  is  an  inspiring  story  of  a  life  worth  while  and  the  rich  beauties 
of  the  out-of-doors  are  strewn  through  all  its  pages. 

AT  THE  FOOT  OF  THE  RAINBOW. 

Illustrations  in  colors  by  Oliver  Kemp.    Design  and  decorations  by 
Ralph  Fletcher  Seymour. 

The  scene  of  this  charming,  idyllic  love  story  is  laid  in  Central 
Indiana.  The  story  is  one  of  devoted  friendship,  and  tender  self- 
sacrificing  love;  the  friendship  that  gives  freely  without  return,  and 
the  love  that  seeks  first  the  happiness  of  the  object.  The  novel  is 
brimful  of  the  most  beautiful  word  painting  of  nature,  and  its  pathos 
and  tender  sentiment  will  endear  it  to  all. 

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STORIES    OF    WESTERN    LIFE 

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RIDERS  OF  THE  PURPLE  SAGE,    By  Zane  Grey. 
Illustrated  by  Douglas  Duer. 

In  this  picturesque  romance  of  Utah  of  some  forty  years  ago,  we 
are  permitted  to  see  the  unscrupulous  methods  employed  by  the  in- 
visible hand  of  the  Mormon  Church  to  break  the  will  of  those  refus- 
ing to  conform  to  its  rule. 

FRIAR  TUCK,    By  Robert  Alexander  Wason. 
Illustrated  by  Stanley  L.  Wood. 

Happy  Hawkins  tells  us,  in  his  humorous  way,  how  Friar  Tuck 
lived  among  the  Cowboys,  how  he  adjusted  their  quarrels  and  love 
affairs  and  how  he  fought  with  them  and  for  them  when  occasion 
required. 

THE    SKY   PILOT.    By  Ralph    Connor. 
Illustrated  by  Louis  Rhead. 

There  is  no  novel,  dealing  with  the  rough  existence  of  cowboys, 
so  charming  in  the  telling,  abounding  as  it  aloes  with  the  freshest  and 
the  truest  pathos. 

THE  EMIGRANT  TRAIL,    By  Geraldine  Bonner. 
Colored  frontispiece  by  John  Rae. 

The  book  relates  the  adventures  of  a  party  on  its  overland  pil- 
grimage, and  the  birth  and  growth  of  the  absorbing  love  of  two  strong 
men  for  a  charming  heroine. 

THE  BOSS    OF  WIND  RIVER,    By  A.  M.  Chisholm, 

Illustrated  by  Frank  Tenney  Johnson. 

This  is  a  strong,  virile  novel  with  the  lumber  industry  for  its  cen- 
tral theme  and  a  love  story  full  of  interest  as  a  sort  of  subplot. 

A  PRAIRIE  COURTSHIP,    By  Harold  Bindloss. 

A  story  of  Canadian  prairies  in  which  the  hero  is  stirred,  through 
the  influence  of  his  love  for  a  woman,  to  settle  down  to  the  heroic 
business  of  pioneer  farming. 

JOYCE   OF  THE  NORTH  WOODS,    By  Harriet  T.  Comstock. 
illustrated  by  John  Cassel. 

A  story  of  the  deep  woods  that  shows  the  power  of  love  at  work 
among  its  primitive  dwellers.  It  is  a  tensely  moving  study  of  the 
human  heart  and  its  aspirations  that  unfolds  itself  through  thrilling 
skuations  and  dramatic  developments. 

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B.  M.  Bower's  Novels 

Thrilling  Western  Romances 

Large  12  mos.  Handsomely  bound  in  cloth.     Illustrated 

CHIP,  OF  THE  FLYING  U 

A  breezy  wholesome  tale,  wherein  the  love  affairs  of  Chip  and 
Delia  Whitman  are  charmingly  and  humorously  told.  Chip's 
jealousy  of  Br.  Cecil  Grantham,  who  turns  out  to  be  a  big.  blu-3 
eyed  young  woman  is  very  amusing.  A  clever,  realistic  story  of 
the  American  Cow-puncher. 
THE  HAPPY  FAMILY 

A  lively  and  amusing  story,  dealing  with  the  adventures  of 
eighteen  jovial,  big  hearted  Montana  cowboys.     Foremost  amongst 
them,  we  find  Ananias  Green,  known  as  Andy,  whose  imaginative 
powers  cause  many  lively  and  exciting  adventures. 
HER  PRAIRIE  KNIGHT 

A  realistic  story  of  the  plains,  describing  a  gay  party  of  Eas- 
terners who  exchange  a  cottage  at  Newport  for  the  rough  homeli- 
ness of  a  Montana  ranch-house.  The  merry-hearted  cowboys,  the 
fascinating  Beatrice,  and  the  effusive  Sir  Redmond,  become  living, 
breathing  personalities. 
THE  RANGE  DWELLERS 

Here  are  everyday,  genuine  cowboys,  just  as  they  really  exist. 
Spirited  action,  a  range  feud  between  two  families,  and  a  Romeo 
and  Juliet  courtship  make  this  a  bright,  jolly,  entertaining  story, 
without  a  dull  page. 
THE    LURE  OF  DIM  TRAILS 

A  vivid   portrayal  of  the    experience  of  an   Eastern  author, 
among  the  cowboys  of  the  West,  in  search  of  "local  color"  for  a 
new  novel.    "Bud"  Thurston  learns  many  a  lesson  while  following 
"the  lure  of  the  dim  trails"  but  the  hardest,  and  probably  the  most  j 
welcome,  is  that  of  love. 
THE   LONESOME   TRAIL 

"Weary"  Davidson  leaves  the  ranch  for  Portland,  where  con- 
/entional  city  life  palls  on  him.  A  little  branch  of  sage  brush, 
pungent  with  the  atmosphere  of  the  prairie,  and  the  recollection  of 
a  pair  of  large  brown  eyes  soon  compel  his  return.  A  wholesome 
love  story, 

THE  LONG  SHADOW 

A  vigorous  Western  story,  sparkling  with*  the  free,  outdoor, 
life  of  a  mountain  ranch.  Its  scenes  shift  rapidly  and  its  actors  play 
the  game  of  life  fearlessly  and  like  men.  It  is  a  fine  love  story  from 
start  to  finish. 

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